10 - Solving a Big Problem

Summary

Size matters not. Look at me. Judge me by size, do you?

—Yoda, Jedi master

Giraffes are the world's largest terrestrial animal. Adult males can stand 18 feet tall and weigh over 3,500 pounds. Their prominent necks alone can hit 600 pounds on the scale. And they are capable of killing an adult male lion with a single blow from any of its four legs.

Apex predators like the lion, and sometimes even a crocodile, will sometimes kill a giraffe, but they generally avoid healthy specimens unless absolutely necessary for fear of fatal reprisals.

Enter the lowly tick. Less than the size of a nickel, ticks attach to giraffes and burrow beneath their thick coat and begin a process of slowly sapping the animal's strength and eventually causing an infection that in and of itself doesn't necessarily prove fatal. What proves fatal is being slowed and weakened, something that does not go unnoticed by the top of the food chain.

As noted previously, Mark had consciously sought out an industry giant that had not yet figured out how to work the emerging technology of the day into its strategy. And so large was Simplex that it barely, if at all, noticed as Kronos burrowed into the time clock business and began slowly sucking customers away.

That giant, blissfully unaware of its imminent doom, continued grazing on the leaves of the industry!

In business, giants come in varying shapes and sizes. The apex predators are easiest to spot. But it's the underlying issues—giant problems, if you will—that often determine a fledgling company's trajectory toward success or failure, as measured, ironically or not, by metrics known as upticks and downticks.

Mark didn't raise a victory flag as Kronos lifted buoyantly away from the launch pad. Rather, with product shipping and accounts receivable, and with financing under control, he set his mind toward improving every aspect of the operation from procedure through product. It was time to take a good look inside and see if there were any issues that needed preemptive action before turning bigger.