It’s easy to get caught up with technological advances, whether they be bigger and better, smaller and faster, or more creative and more efficient. However, it is absolutely vital that you don’t forget the basics along the way. The basics, in a business sense, could be thing like customer service etiquette, understanding databases and avoiding mistakes, or even something as simple as the focus of your company. You should make it a point to reiterate the basics on a regular basis, or you will run into classic instances of failure – those that can be prevented, those that are expensive, and those that can be predicted.
Failure Can Be Prevented
On the prevention side, failure is often a result of the basics getting lost in the shuffle. There are countless examples of companies that have gone completely bankrupt because of a flaw somewhere in their workflow where prevention was not given the right priority. Basics like equipment maintenance scheduling have to be on point for any company dealing with manufacturing, but often in the rush to get things done, managers are willing to cut corners to try to remain competitive, when in fact, the exact opposite tends to happen.
Failure Can Be Expensive
Even minor technical glitches can be insanely expensive to companies, and the bigger you get, the more these glitches can affect you. International companies that have computer systems go down for even a few hours can potentially lose millions of dollars, all because somewhere along the line, some basic premise of upkeep was shuffled aside. If you are an owner or a manager, you should learn from these mistakes that other companies have made, so that you don’t run into a similar situation from your own faults.
Failure Can Be Predictable
Loss prevention is an interesting part of many companies. Think of major retailors like Target or Wal-Mart. Even though theft is not necessarily failure as such, not catching the predicted amount of theft definitely is. One of the basics of working at one of these places is understanding loss prevention, and if managers fail to go over the basics again and again with employees, there will eventually be a breakdown in the system. Technology helps greatly with some types of products (think about the process that goes into preventing the theft of alcohol, high end clothing, or electronics equipment), but without the basic knowledge of how all of those pieces fit together, there are going to be ways to work around the system.
Failure is a natural part of growth, but good failure is the kind that promotes solution. Failure that occurs because of lack of attention to basic details is the kind that will destroy even great business opportunities, simply because the simple and repeatable aspects of the businesses were not prioritized. Especially when it comes to technology, and especially when it comes to analytical behavior, you can have all the advanced concepts you want, but without the basics, they become almost worthless.
