When major changes occur in a target market, we leaders of associates can view such changes as doom-and-gloom or as opportunities. In my own case, some daunting marketplace challenges in the form of new technologies virtually eliminated my original value proposition. I was faced with the selection of packing it all in, or finding a way to change these challenges into new marketplace offerings and give my firm a flourishing "second chance." I chose the latter.
My firm Cdworks is a Boston-based firm at the lower-tech end of high-tech. Our assistance is duplication of electronic data such as conference presentations, firm catalogs and corporate communications. The early days of Cd were technologically challenging, requiring specialized knowledge such as deciphering Scsi and cable termination and even the corporal positioning of files on the disc. Advances over the years have reduced the knowledge level to that of operating a simple copier: place the disc in the drive and key in the whole of discs. Disc printing adds more complexity because of the many choices available and the trade-off of advantages and disadvantages of each, but the simplicity of the process has opened up the shop to hosts of competitors who can enter for very wee money and less technical know-how.
Ten or twelve years ago, we needed to interpret to our customers what a Cd was and help them understand how it could be used. A typical job included creating some iterations of a specialist disc before one was working as desired, and then manufacture up to a integrate of hundred discs. But now, the assistance that we provided straight through that work no longer has the value that it used to.
Our customers now create their own discs and - in most cases - send us a specialist disc ready to be copied. They will make the small quantity copies themselves but come to us when hundreds or thousands are needed. We now work in a shop where Cd-R and even Dvd-R are ubiquitous and new disc formats and new media formats, such as flash memory cards and Usb memory sticks, abound. equipment for our customers to bring the work in-house is inexpensive and readily available.
In order to survive and prosper in this environment, we have had to morph our firm to stay one step ahead of the technology and shop changes. Rather than competing with the do-it-yourselfers, we have chosen to harness their desires by providing the tools they need. Cdworks has introduced an online creation capability where the user can upload files and produce a unblemished Cd package. This includes basic print options such as disc art and jewel case inserts, that can be designed online with stock or custom art. The customer can do this at any time of the day or night from in any place with an internet connection.
At the same time, however, as a firm we are going after more high volume corporate accounts and have focused on developing good relationships with larger clients who have jobs requiring specialty packaging and high levels of customization, such as fulfillment and complicated shipping. Many of these jobs are for corporate communications purposes and are commonly for 1,000 to some hundred thousand discs. Our knowledge of packaging options and sources, and palpate with all the details and pitfalls of disc replication has come to be the foundation for delivering value to our customers.
Stanford University economist Paul Romer has said that a accident is a terrible thing to waste. For us, hope of a accident is now a call to operation and, clearly, manufacture changes before reaching a accident situation is essential. The trick of procedure is to see the crises before they unquestionably come and to be able to recognize the real from the threatening. The arrival of the Internet appeared to be a accident at one point in time, but we were exact in our evaluation that it would co-exist with corporal distribution. Some sectors of the shop have plainly been more affected than others, and our focus on market duplication has helped us avoid the more dramatic broad-market challenges faced by the music industry.
In a technology-based firm such as ours, obsolescence and technological advances are a fact of life. We are enduringly on the watch for the next wave, and responding to the needs of our customers remains paramount. We need to assert a equilibrium in the middle of innovation and the established market. Some years ago, for example, we found ourselves provocative "backwards" to producing Vhs tapes because our Dvd firm - then in its infancy - still required video on Vhs for the many consumers not yet capable of playing Dvds. Now producing a Vhs tape is relatively rare.
Other major changes in our industry have included the rise of competitors from associated businesses adopting our technology in order to keep up with us. For example, tape duplicators provocative into disc duplication and some printers gift replication as an added service. To battle these challenges, we chose to furnish a one-stop reserved supply for our customers including providing print materials along with Cd and Dvd discs. We now furnish also such added services as converting video to Dvd and duplicating data on new media. It's a enduringly evolving reality, always aimed at keeping one or two steps ahead of the competing game. To do otherwise is to accept defeat and assume, wrongly, that there's nothing we can unquestionably do.
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