VENI, VIDI, BUT NOT YET VICI

Back in Feb when the medical fraternity were busy debating and discussing on weather masks really helped evade the virus proliferation, fashion companies and designers were busy sketching fancy masks and soon they could make their way into closet accessories. Well, this time around, people didn’t even have to speak laurels about the brand, perhaps just flaunt it across their faces. Though it may sound thinly unethical, to extract business out of a scarce and essential commodity, but only money can keep a business tread through rough patches, and front running opportunities is key to existential sustenance.

Amidst this pandemic and other disruptive technological in-flexion points in the industry, some companies emerge vindictive over the existing ones, and others follow suit. Given the digital penetration and virtual accessibility internet and its allies have developed over these years, success has become cheap, in terms of time. The escalation matrix, from an idea to an investable venture and then a public listing, has reduced to mere months now. As it was said, ‘A company goes up a staircase and comes down an elevator’.

We come across intriguing stories and tales about how vertical mergers lead to billion dollar synergies, but lets not forget, there were some laggards too, who couldnt timely explore the tiny pockets of opportunity floating in the marketplace. They are like an open bid, the higher the synergy the higher the bid price.

Here we unfold the stories of 2 such companies, who could have enlarged to massive scale if they reshaped their business models to the brewing opportunities.

Why did NIKE ‘Not Just Do It’ in the Wearables Business?

How cool would it be if Nike bands wrapped as snugly around your wrist as the sneakers hug your feet, tracking steps and parsing them into the band. The fitness wearables marketplace was worth $5.7Bn in 2016, and is growing faster than Nike’s market value, so would the company have accelerated had it bit a pie of this growth story. With 1 in 5 people wearing a Nike Pegasus, it has a colossal customer base across 170 countries. Nike conceptualized the idea of community fitness and personalized performance, and made virtual training rooms on its flagship mobile application, Nike Plus. It took baby steps to open the door ajar, but swiftly closed it seeing the noise inside. It realised that the hardware market wasn’t its niche and continued developing the software front, securing a safe position in the apple watches.

Wonder how a Nike store would look, with watches and other wearable gears sharing shelves with Nike Zoom shoe.

SKYPE Dormancy in this Mindshare Moment.

What if the FANGMAN (FACEBOOK+AMAZON+NVIDIA+GOOGLE+MICROSOFT+APPLE+NETFLIX) companies just commercialised their in-house messenger to their subscription model product portfolio.

Well, then why couldnt, Skype become the new hype in times when Zoom quadrupled its subscriber base in weeks. When yoga classes and house parties were streaming on the new age video conferencing platforms, Skype was busy fixing its security patches, which highlights Microsoft’s beleaguered acquisition. In 2011, Skype had nearly 8 million users, paying for its Voice over Internet Protocol services (VoIP). Ever since, new messenger applications stole the show, and Skype settled for a mere slice of the market share. They were prudent enough to gauge the laggard growth of Skype, and thus switched gears to Microsoft Teams. For these applications, the user interface is the battlefield, one useful dropdown or toggle can change the game upside down, and that’s essentially where Skpe fell flat.

Valuable lessons of business economics, strategic product placement, adaptive capabilities and resilience to contingent market developments can be learnt from these episodes.