When I worked
at a major beverage company,
cannibalization,
new products stealing
the sales of existing products,
was a big concern.
The thing is…
if we didn’t cannibalize
our own products,
the competitor eventually would.
Howard Yu
and Thomas Malnight
share
“The willingness to cannibalize
a company’s existing business
before its decline
was also a major focus
of Apple under Steve Jobs.
In 2005,
when the demand for the iPod Mini
remained huge,
the Nano was launched,
effectively destroying
the revenue stream
of an existing product.
And while iPod sales
were still going through the roof,
Jobs launched the iPhone
which combined iPod,
cell phone, and Internet access
into a single device.”
Embrace the cannibalization
of your old products
by your new products.
If you don’t eat your lunch,
someone else will.