![]() Niche brands pop up and, at very little cost, pick off small segments of the market from incumbents who invested decades in building mass loyalty. Products grow more customized, turning standardization into liability. Even in production-heavy industries, of which there are fewer, factories grow smaller, more specialized, and they are easily turned on and off. For more than a century, industrial conglomerates have depended on such economies of scale to keep their competition at bay. In other words, with a few mouse clicks and e-mails, an entrepreneur today can achieve the economies of scale that used to require months of planning and millions of dollars.”įurthermore, The way to wealth was once to build a factory so big that no one could match your investment to standardize parts and platforms so that no one could touch your volume to establish a brand so widely recognized that no one could afford to pull customers away. Today that company can go to and find a manufacturer ready to provide the product with minimal incremental cost. In Outthink the Competition, Krippendorf points out, “ Previously, a company that wanted to create a new product would have to invest millions to build or retool the factory. How has the Internet affected manufacturing. What do you feel 3D printing will do to the printing business? We’ve all seen the impact of Uber, Lyft, Amazon. ![]() In every part of society, the middlemen are being pushed out of the picture” Industries have been disrupted and are being remade before our eyes…It’s all crumbling down. He has founded or cofounded more than 20 companies. In Tim Finnigan’s blog The Middlemen are Disappearing, he begins his article with a quote from James Altucher, an American hedge fund manager, entrepreneur, bestselling author, venture capitalist and podcaster. Goliath: Out Think the Competition we shared how many of Gladwell’s ideas are seeing expression in the ideas formulated by Krippendorff in Outthink the Competitio n. Warby Parker as described in David and Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits, and the Art of Battling Giants by Malcolm Gladwell seemed to be a wonderful option. If you’re like me, you dislike shopping for just about anything, especially when you get poor service and still pay a premium for the items you purchase. Recently I purchased a pair of glasses from Warby Parker for myself and my son Noah. In The Death of the Middleman this article byline is An underlying principle of e-commerce is to skip the costs and logistics of using a retail middleman to sell directly. It doesn’t take a genius to see how many of these trends, particularly The Death of the Middleman, are playing out over the past six years. (We’ll discuss this change and how to respond to it in our next two blogs.)īefore our meeting I’d shared a portion of one of the trends which could influence Fleck Sales from Outthink the Competition: How a New Generation of Strategists Sees Options Others Ignore by Kaihan Krippendorff which I’d outlined in OUTTHINKERS - Nine Trends Transforming the World. We’d just finished putting in place some difficult and important changes for Fleck Sales to implement for their third trimester. "It's conceivable that someday our suppliers could try to go direct to consumers and cut us out partially or entirely from our most profitable customer base." Dudley Fleck, Fleck Sales, Cedar Rapids, IAĭudley made this comment as we discussed the Death of the Middleman as part of our trimester planning meeting Tuesday morning.
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