Accomplishment Blinds Us to Reinvention

Jeremy Gutsche's innovative business keynote explores the importance of a brand constantly reinventing itself to avoid becoming a victim of complacency. The innovation keynote speaker shares his case study of typewriter company Smith Corona to demonstrate what happens when businesses ignore opportunities to reinvent or to try something different because of current success.

Smith Corona was an industry leader in its glory days, making the best typewriters with no threatening competitors and was worth $500 million. With that type of money and success, Smith Corona felt no need to get its foot in the door of the predicted next big thing in technology: computing.

"...the world was changing, but there was not an urgent need to move into an unproven market. After all, if computer word processors became interesting, Smith Corona could easily just 'buy their way in.' Right?"

Unfortunately, Smith Corona could not buy its way in and the company went from having $500 million to being bankrupt by 1995.

The lesson Jeremy intends for his readers to understand is that it is very easy for big, successful companies to remain focused on current success and not focus on future opportunities. For the full story of Smith Corona, check out the FREE copy of 'Exploiting Chaos' here.