The second failure is more recent. In fact, I think I am living through it and have lived through it for a few years. It is do with the current business that we do in Netcore around open-source messaging and security solutions. We have done this business now for nearly 7 years. The business has not grown in size significantly, and we havent turned the corner in profitability. At the same time, we have invested in many other related areas looking for the next big thing. The result we have challenges in our existing business, and we have been unable to monetise the new ideas that weve had in the past.
As I write this, it does seem a bit strange accepting responsibility for what we are going through. And yet, I know that the first step towards starting to get back on track is realising that one is on the wrong track. I had always hoped in the past years that we will be either able to grow our existing business fast enough or get our new ideas to start generating enough cashflow so that we will be profitable, and that would give us the launchpad for growth. But, increasingly, what has become clear is that the income and expenditure lines are diverging, not converging.
A couple of things have landed us in the present position. My ideas went far ahead of reality. I forgot my own lesson of managing the short-term and the long-term. I think there is a great vision that is there for tomorrows world thin clients, server-centric computing, and computing as a service. But in this, the short-term has been sacrificed we havent managed to build our first profit platform.
So, the challenge I now face is manifold: thinking whether the current business we are in can be made profitable, and if so, how; creating a sustainable profit engine either from the current business or a new business and doing so quickly; ensuring that we also stay on track for the long-term vision that we seek to implement; and doing the transition quickly. There is a need for putting ones head down and focusing hard on the business we are in and where we want to be. There is a lot of experience that we have gained which we now need to put to good use. But we have to make decisions quickly and then operationalise them.
When I look back, I see a lot of similarity between now and the 1994 period that I went through. This was not apparent until some time ago when I started realising that even as we continue to want to grow and have big dreams, we are not taking care of the present. Then too, I had big dreams but the reality of today did not match the vision of tomorrow. It does not make the situation any easier even though Ive gone through it before. I am confident we will pull ourselves out of the hole that we are in because at least I now recognise that we are in a hole.
Tomorrow: Why Failure Happens
TECH TALK When Things Go Wrong+T
