I think I agree with all your points. In terms of major companies successfully transforming to a new business, the best examples are where technology and the market has changed - and this is exactly the case here.
I’m sure there are many examples that I can’t think of off the top of my head, but IBM may be one example. They were once a hardware company, made several transitions, and became mainly a services company. In Europe, there is one energy company, whose name escapes me, that divested all of its fossil energy assets, and transitioned to renewables. Sometimes though, large companies whose business is in secular decline just get absorbed into another large company. Or maybe the opposite. Total, a big oil company, bought the largest EV charging company in the UK. - Mark Sent from my Fuel Cell powered iPhone > On Sep 18, 2020, at 10:44 AM, Lee Hart via EV <ev@lists.evdl.org> wrote: > > Mark Abramowitz via EV wrote: >> I don’t disagree, but neither do I care. I don’t want a company >> holding on to a business that doesn’t work for them. I’d rather they >> sell it to someone interested in making it work. > > The problem with that is that if the business is poor, they can't get > anything for it. And if the business is good, they can sell it for a lot; but > then they lose out on the profits. The new business can wind up running the > old company out of their old business. > > There are many examples where an old established company failed to appreciate > the promise of a new technology, or new market opportunity. One example would > be the mechanical watch industry. They *invented* the digital watch; but > couldn't see how it could ever pay. So they sold it. Digital watches took > over the market, and drove most of the mechanical watch companies out of > business. > >> Further, if they can seed and build a company with solidly >> environmental products, I’m thrilled. It’s tough to do if you don’t >> have the wherewithal. > > Ironically, it's the big companies that have the wherewithal to try something > new. They can afford to invest in the R&D to perfect a new idea, and bring it > to market. > > The small start-up may have a great idea; but they struggle to bring it to > market. Especially because the big company is likely to fight them tooth and > nail to keep any new idea out of the market. > >> Even better, if they can transition their business to make the >> positive products a larger and larger part of their business until >> the fossil portion disappears ... hallelujah! > > Yes; but man, is that ever rare! Can you think of any examples where a major > company has successfully transitioned from their old business to a new > business? Most of them would rather DIE than change. > > Lee Hart > > -- > A designer knows he has achieved perfection not when there is > nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away. > -- Antoine de Saint Exupery > -- > Lee Hart, 814 8th Ave N, Sartell MN 56377, www.sunrise-ev.com > _______________________________________________ > UNSUBSCRIBE: http://www.evdl.org/help/index.html#usub > ARCHIVE: http://www.evdl.org/archive/index.html > INFO: http://lists.evdl.org/listinfo.cgi/ev-evdl.org > Please discuss EV drag racing at NEDRA (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NEDRA) > > _______________________________________________ UNSUBSCRIBE: http://www.evdl.org/help/index.html#usub ARCHIVE: http://www.evdl.org/archive/index.html INFO: http://lists.evdl.org/listinfo.cgi/ev-evdl.org Please discuss EV drag racing at NEDRA (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NEDRA)
