Why are we in business?

No one will doubt the phenomenal success of the Virgin brand. Interestingly, Richard Branson runs the Virgin organisation by spending a third of his time on promotions, another third on fighting fires and the last third on prevention.

This approach can be applied to most Australian businesses, services and products, not-for-profits, local goverments or community organisations. It is an interesting balance between looking ahead at future opportunities (promotions) and threats (prevention) and acting on immediate threats (fighting fires) and immediate opportunities (promotions).

This approach underscores the importance of making the most and capitalising on the immediate and future threats and opportunities faced by organisations.

Drucker on the other hand was quoted to have said: "Because its purpose is to create a customer, any business enterprise has two and only two basic functions, marketing and innovation". Marketing in itself is an activity that promotes the company, its brand, products and services. Part of any marketing communications strategy is to ‘fight fires’, as Branson would call it, and many organisations uses innovation to prevent a reduction in growth and profit margins.

It seems as if Drucker and Branson are talking about similar topics. Innovation is nothing else than a prevention tactic to remain relevant, and many promotions are run to reduce the threat or shrinking margins.

In the end the challenge to us all is to find ‘others’ problems’ and turn them into ‘opportunities for us’, using elements within our control to create solutions that meets needs at a set price.