The movie Field of Dreams seems to have set the tone for business over the last 20 years.
“If you build it they will come” has become the mantra of many service providers, but are the successful ones really beginning with technology and technical design, or do they actually have a service strategy in place that is simply supported by technology?
In the movie, Kevin Costner’s character Ray Kinsella is portrayed as a novice farmer, which I believe gives him a distinct advantage in this story because he didn’t know squat about dirt.
If Costner’s character, Ray had been a farming specialist, he would have spent his time measuring the composite makeup of the soil and analyzing the amounts of sand, clay and potassium. He would have gotten bogged down in discussions about the technical merits of broadcast seeding versus seed drilling. If he was a technology type, he might have spent all his money on aquiring the best GPS.
What Ray did focus on was the strategic decision to either produce corn or fulfill dreams. Decision made, Ray invested his time and money into ensuring that he had the necessary service assets – namely bleachers and a ball diamond – in place to fulfill dreams. He didn’t start by enriching the soil or buying equipment in hopes that he could find a business use for it.
© Wayne McKinnon 2010. All rights reserved.
