When you’re a large company with significant market share, it’s tempting to view market disruptions as a threat, but we view them as an opportunity. When a market isn’t in transition, gaining market share is hard—you’re fighting to take one or two points of share from competitors. …
The most important thing I learned during my time at IBM and Wang is that even great companies are imperiled if they miss a market transition—and I saw both of them miss important ones. …
For Cisco, each transition required a decision about when to jump from selling a profitable product to a new technology—often one that would cannibalize our existing product line. …
Adapting to new markets means constantly bringing in new expertise and sustaining a resilient culture with an appetite for change.