I heard that one of our competitors in Basingstoke has ceased trading this week. I guess I should be jumping for joy but I’m not. In fact, I’m a bit gutted.
KAG Design had been in Basingstoke for over twenty years and were central to the design community in Basingstoke. As young pretenders came and went, KAG were always there or there abouts. I envied them a bit I guess, and aspired to be as big as them when we set up The Escape in 1998.
At The Escape, we have aspired to many companies during our life and I can say, without hesitation, that although it wasn’t a destructive ambition, if was jaded somewhat when I learned the reality behind the facade of these companies.
It seems that KAG are not alone in shutting up shop. Design agencies are struggling across the board. As budgets get cut and new media changes the way that creative is delivered, traditional design is dying on it’s arse. But, it’s not as if we haven’t seen it coming.
About 50% of The Escape’s revenue now comes from an industry that was barely in existence when we set up ten years ago - the web. We changed, we adapted and that part of our business has grown immensely over the past five years.
And, as a business owner, I can’t help thinking that if it came that quickly… perhaps it will morph into something else within the next ten years that makes our current service offering obsolete. Content management systems may well be just an extension of a computer operating systems before long, who knows?
And, where does that leave me? I read once that the lifespan of a business is 25 years, so if that’s the case, The Escape is nearly half way there.
But I acknowledge that businesses change. Industries change. Whether it’s camera films, fax machines, video recorders or websites; nostalgia is one thing, making money is another. The vision to succeed is different to the day-to-day delivery of a product and service. Any person in a small business must be looking at change. Not necessarily the risky end of cutting edge change, but at the very least diversification.
One last thought. 90% of the work we used to do, ended up being printed. Now, it may end up on the web, as a PDF, or on disk because the client is being offered print ridiculously cheaply and we won’t cut off our nose to spite our face. Hence, the change in revenue generators for The Escape.
The death of a business soon passes and people forget. Nostalgia doesn’t pat the bills. Change is the only constant.
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{ 1 comment… read it below or add one }
Having previously run my own business in the field of music I know all about the transient nature of business. Like you, I used to envy one of my competitors but when they went bust I didn’t jump for joy either, it spooked me in fact.
A few years later my business met its demise due to circumstances beyond my control and terrible bad luck. Still, luck played some part when I set it up in the first place, that and hard work.
I’m a firm believer that good or bad luck always finds its place. In other words, you make your own luck.