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I wonder: Are there any examples of a large company successfully pivoting completely out of what had been its bread-and-butter competency? I was going to say

I wonder: Are there any examples of a large company successfully pivoting completely out of what had been its bread-and-butter competency? I was going to say 3M, because they were originally owned a mine, and had to pivot when the ore was too low grade. But they weren't a large company then. You could argue that Apple did with the iPhone, but it was only half a pivot, since they're still in the desktop business too. So don't be too hard on Kodak. They had plenty of time (and warning) to pivot out of film, and they didn't, but very few firms successfully do that.

bb88 2y ago
Suzuki is the best example I can find. They were famous for looms well before motorcycles. I'm betting the best examples will also come from Japan after WWII. Netflix might be a close second because it went from managing warehouses full of DVD's to streaming and producing original content. Microsoft and Amazon all belong in same camp as Apple. AWS and Azure are big profit centers.
etrautmann 2y ago
Nintendo pivoted from cards to games but they likely weren’t huge before the pivot either.
al_borland 2y ago
Netflix. Though it might have been the plan from the start, their bread and butter was the logistics around shipping DVDs to people, and the pivoted to lead the charge on streaming video. AT&T. They basically owned the phone lines, but rather than getting stuck there they were able to transition to cellular and fiber. I thought they’d get stuck for a while when their slow DSL over the old phone lines was looking bad next to cable, but now they are trying to get the government to stop serving some old phone lines. If a company does it well, it will feel more like an evolution or diversification, rather than a hard pivot. Think companies like Disney who are into everything, so where they started is such a small piece of the pie it doesn’t matter all that much. Or IBM where they transitioned from analog to digital business machines. I won’t claim keeping any business going is easy. Very few are able to stay relevant for decades, or a person’s lifetime. Those that do are the ones that evolve and reinvent themselves over time, generally speaking.
- Ekaros 2y ago
  Calling Netflix a pivot is maybe wrong in my mind. It is same model in essence just done differently, renting content. From physical to digital which means lower overhead and you are just moving your own customers from one to other. Basically it is optimization of process not replacement.
  - al_borland 2y ago
    Right, but they didn’t get stuck in the DVD business and fail like every other video rental service. They changed the business to serve the greater mission of letting customers watch a lot of movies, rather than thinking their job was simply to make renting DVDs easy. It seems natural, because they did it well, but look at Blockbuster. Imagine if Netflix stuck with physical media, and then Hulu came out. Netflix would have been toast. Maybe they would have acquired RedBox to hang on for a while longer, but ultimately physical media rental would have only taken them so far. Netflix was willing to cannibalize their own DVD business for the future streaming business. A lot of companies aren’t willing to sacrifice their golden goose for an unknown future. Apple has been good at this as well. The iPod was most of their business, and then they released the iPhone which effectively killed the iPod. Then they released the iPad with the expectation that it would eventually take a huge chunk of the laptop market. If a company evolves well and is willing to cannibalize their own products, they don’t need to take the radical Hail Mary pivot. Looking back the iPhone seems like a pretty natural evolution for Apple, but compare that to Microsoft. They missed the boat, had a few false starts, and effectively missed the entire move to mobile. They’ve made up for it in other areas, but a few big misses like that and companies die. Look at BlackBerry; they botched the move to the modern smartphone and were done. They were too worried about hanging onto the past and trying to carry it forward in some way. It doesn’t seem like a big pivot to make for a phone company, but it was enough to sink them. Nokia too… a shell of what it once was.
bruce511 2y ago
So many, everywhere you look. Microsoft started out with OS, branched into Office, branched into servers, branched into Azure. Apple started with desktop, branched into phones, earpods etc. IBM went from hardware to services. Just because a company pivots, it doesn't mean they gave to set fire to the old business. It means they move on from it -keeping it alive, while embracing the next step. Apple still sells desktops but that's a tiny part of the business. The still sell laptops but that's a fraction of the appstore business and so on. Google still does search, but is slso YouTube and Gmail etc. They are investing in AI which may turn out to be a search replacement. Most businesses are always moving forward, moving to the next thing. It's not "pivoting" or abandoning old things, it's about embracing the new. We're hard on Kodak because they saw the future and promptly pretended it wasn't going to happen.
karmakurtisaani 2y ago
Nokia went from producing boots to electronics like tvs and cell phones to building mobile networks. With varying levels of success, obviously.

bb88 2y ago

Suzuki is the best example I can find. They were famous for looms well before motorcycles. I'm betting the best examples will also come from Japan after WWII. Netflix might be a close second because it went from managing warehouses full of DVD's to streaming and producing original content. Microsoft and Amazon all belong in same camp as Apple. AWS and Azure are big profit centers.

etrautmann 2y ago

Nintendo pivoted from cards to games but they likely weren’t huge before the pivot either.

al_borland 2y ago

Netflix. Though it might have been the plan from the start, their bread and butter was the logistics around shipping DVDs to people, and the pivoted to lead the charge on streaming video. AT&T. They basically owned the phone lines, but rather than getting stuck there they were able to transition to cellular and fiber. I thought they’d get stuck for a while when their slow DSL over the old phone lines was looking bad next to cable, but now they are trying to get the government to stop serving some old phone lines. If a company does it well, it will feel more like an evolution or diversification, rather than a hard pivot. Think companies like Disney who are into everything, so where they started is such a small piece of the pie it doesn’t matter all that much. Or IBM where they transitioned from analog to digital business machines. I won’t claim keeping any business going is easy. Very few are able to stay relevant for decades, or a person’s lifetime. Those that do are the ones that evolve and reinvent themselves over time, generally speaking.

Ekaros 2y ago
Calling Netflix a pivot is maybe wrong in my mind. It is same model in essence just done differently, renting content. From physical to digital which means lower overhead and you are just moving your own customers from one to other. Basically it is optimization of process not replacement.
- al_borland 2y ago
  Right, but they didn’t get stuck in the DVD business and fail like every other video rental service. They changed the business to serve the greater mission of letting customers watch a lot of movies, rather than thinking their job was simply to make renting DVDs easy. It seems natural, because they did it well, but look at Blockbuster. Imagine if Netflix stuck with physical media, and then Hulu came out. Netflix would have been toast. Maybe they would have acquired RedBox to hang on for a while longer, but ultimately physical media rental would have only taken them so far. Netflix was willing to cannibalize their own DVD business for the future streaming business. A lot of companies aren’t willing to sacrifice their golden goose for an unknown future. Apple has been good at this as well. The iPod was most of their business, and then they released the iPhone which effectively killed the iPod. Then they released the iPad with the expectation that it would eventually take a huge chunk of the laptop market. If a company evolves well and is willing to cannibalize their own products, they don’t need to take the radical Hail Mary pivot. Looking back the iPhone seems like a pretty natural evolution for Apple, but compare that to Microsoft. They missed the boat, had a few false starts, and effectively missed the entire move to mobile. They’ve made up for it in other areas, but a few big misses like that and companies die. Look at BlackBerry; they botched the move to the modern smartphone and were done. They were too worried about hanging onto the past and trying to carry it forward in some way. It doesn’t seem like a big pivot to make for a phone company, but it was enough to sink them. Nokia too… a shell of what it once was.

bruce511 2y ago

So many, everywhere you look. Microsoft started out with OS, branched into Office, branched into servers, branched into Azure. Apple started with desktop, branched into phones, earpods etc. IBM went from hardware to services. Just because a company pivots, it doesn't mean they gave to set fire to the old business. It means they move on from it -keeping it alive, while embracing the next step. Apple still sells desktops but that's a tiny part of the business. The still sell laptops but that's a fraction of the appstore business and so on. Google still does search, but is slso YouTube and Gmail etc. They are investing in AI which may turn out to be a search replacement. Most businesses are always moving forward, moving to the next thing. It's not "pivoting" or abandoning old things, it's about embracing the new. We're hard on Kodak because they saw the future and promptly pretended it wasn't going to happen.

karmakurtisaani 2y ago

Nokia went from producing boots to electronics like tvs and cell phones to building mobile networks. With varying levels of success, obviously.