Business Definition

We have been using the question “What is your business” in our strategy workshops. We have been feeling that this is a very important question to be answered before we make strategy. But many times we have experienced that our clients wish to hurry to look for ways to improve their current operations than spend some time reflecting on this question and answering it genuinely. We feel in our heart that this is an important question to be answered before we renew the strategy. When clients show hurriedness in looking for ways to generate profits, we mercilessly try to bring them back to this question and do not allow taking forward our interaction to other business issues. Of course, our client seemingly feels irritated and sometimes we doubt ourselves having obsessed with this question.

But we feel now consoled when we read the breakthrough article by Theodore Levitt “Marketing Myopia” (1960). The main theme of this article was the question we ask our clients. The question introduced by Theodore Levitt was ‘What business are you really in?’. He says in the article those who define their business incorrectly are bound to stagnate in the market until they correct it. Also he suggests in the article a shift from product orientation to customer orientation will determine the winning position.

We feel encouraged that we belong to the school of this great thought leader. The importance of our question”what is your business?” is strengthened in our scheme.

Beholder's definition matters most!

The field of business management has created an ocean of concepts , jargons and buzz words. Most often the terms such as leadership, business, product, team, group etc invoke different perceptions among different set of people. Even the educated elite bicker with their contemporaries about the preciseness of the term's meanings and definitions. Leadership is an apt example. What leadership meant in 1950s is different from that of the 2000s.

1.

1. Leadership is “ the behaviour of an individual … directing the activities of a group toward a shared goal” (Hemphill & Coons ,1957)

2. Leadership is the process of influencing others to understand and agree about what needs to be done and how it can be done effectively, and the process of facilitating individual and collective efforts to accomplish the shared objectives. (Yukl, 2002)

Which definition is best or better? We can argue for a decade and still not reach an agreement.

Concepts such as leadership, business, customer, product, value etc are 'live' and not rigid like dead wood. Such terms have the atrribute to assume contextual meaning. The experience from our workshops make us feel that, we should not waste our time being adamant on the preciseness of the definition, but to allow the beholder to hold the meaning as it is and nourish the meaning to grow as the contexts change. Only the beholder's definition matters most in the field than the academically nailed definitions. We need not force a Consultant's / Business school's definition on to the person-on-toes in the sphere of business. The experiences will enable the beholder naturally change the perspective and we need only to facilitate that transition.