Some Businesses Game for Challenge

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Running a business means always having to adapt. New technologies change processes, new competitors emerge and change the way you approach markets.

We didn’t set out to pursue a theme in this issue, but it found its way into our pages.

From cyberthieves who have leveraged technology into a new form of “smash-and-grab” theft to shippers having to prepare for natural disasters that can flare up at any time; from old-line family businesses that must adapt to the loss of a patriarch to retail mainstays that dominated years ago and now must look to new models to stay competitive with both e-commerce sites and more nimble boutiques.

Even aging athletes adapt to the change that comes when they move from the court to the boardroom.

Tracking Kobe Bryant’s venture capital business perhaps holds the greatest promise when it comes to assessing the factors that feed a business’s ability to adapt.

In taking on investing, Bryant has said he was interested in adapting to a new business the assets that made him so successful as a Laker: His famous work ethic allows him to spot entrepreneurs who share that determination; his skill at marketing the Kobe brand can be applied to portfolio companies as well.

Those are things that offer a business – any business – a leg up. What can’t be marketed through or overcome by hard work alone, however, are the wildfires every business faces at one point in its lifespan.

Hanjin Shipping, one of the largest freight carriers operating at the Port of Long Beach, is now trying to stay afloat under the weight of crushing debt incurred when a lagging Chinese economy reduced demand for its megaships. It does not appear this will be a ship that can be turned on a dime.

And not every business should. Should Hanjin be unable to come to terms with its creditors and collapse, it won’t mean the end of product flowing into the United States, it will just mean the end of one inefficient player that was unable to adapt quickly enough.

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