Did you know?

• Of the 500 companies that appeared on the Fortune 500 list of U.S. Firms in 1955, only 62, ranked by revenue, have appeared on the list every year since.  
• Nearly 2,000 companies have appeared on the list since its inception and most of them are no longer on the Fortune 500 list.  
• In 2009 and 2010, 71 companies like Bear Stearns, Circuit City, Merrill Lynch and Tribune dropped off the Fortune 500 list.

Remember Nokia? In the 1990's they captured the market for mobile phones and built one of the most notable brands. Nokia's cellphone virtually defined the industry, the Finnish company was the world's largest mobile phone manufacturer.

As Nokia focused on global dominance and market expansion, other company's like Apple, Samsung, Google and Blackberry focused on enhancements such as interactive applications, web browsing and GPS for mobile phones.  As a result, Nokia's market share severely eroded because they focused on expansion and not consumer needs?  In one fiscal cycle in 2008, Nokia's market shared dropped from 51 percent to 41 percent. Today, Nokia's market shared has dipped to 16.6 percent market share and Samsung leads the way with 28.6 percent of the market share.

Strategic Management is much larger than just the four functions of management (planning, organizing, leading and controlling.) It consists of the analyses, decisions and actions an organization undertakes in order to create and sustain a competitive advantage. Strategic Management is a longer term vision concerned with the external analysis of future opportunities. It determines how we create and maintain competitive advantages in the marketplace. Strategic Management is created by envisioning products and services that are unique, valuable and difficult for competitors to copy or substitute.

Many small business owners just do what they do until their market share diminishes the feasibility of the operation.  Many small businesses work in their business and not on their business.  That is often why small businesses do not transition well between generations or new ownership.  What are you doing to prepare? 

Nokia's example is a great example of what happens when companies are not looking out into the future.  Are you taking time to envision where your company, community and industry are going to be in five, ten or twenty years from now?  If not, you may lose your competitive advantage.  Be assured, there is always someone working hard to steal your market share!