FOCUS vs. distraction

What makes successful companies so?

The differentiation of competitors is often slight. In essence, all products and services eventually become commoditized. So, how can your company continue to thrive.

A simple solution is to remain focused, as a vision, mission, set of core values, etc... on your core competencies. This means, keep your staff lean. Make sure that your employees are all focused on providing the best service possible within your businesses core competencies.

The opposite is the bloat and waste that comes from distraction. I will provide one simple example: internal eMail servers. There are a plethora of services available to businesses to solve this problem. Many are simply an outsourced replacement for your current internal product and staff. Others provide a level of service not even closely feasible given your internal resources and staff. The ubiquity of bandwidth almost completely negates the argument of: "...what if the network goes down..." and with today's remote workers, I'm not sure that argument holds water anyway. This is a really minor example, but in all cases, business leaders should be considering ways to purchase the utmost in value, from external resources, within their budget when considering business services required outside their core competency.