Orca whales and business life spans

Ben Kite
Ben Kite
Sep 6, 2018 · 4 min read

A couple of weeks ago, I had an awesome experience kayaking with a few pods of Orca whales off the West Coast of British Columbia. It was pretty fab!… Kinda like being in Free Willy 4.

It was also really interesting to learn a bit more about these impressive sea critters and the ecosystem they’re a part of. Being a bizness guy (and needing a topic for my next blog), I saw a parallel between the ecosystem of the sea and the things happening on land, especially around life spans.

So… here are my thoughts on business life spans with a hint of orca chat.

👔The bizness ecosystem 👩‍💼

Just as the Orca Whales live in an ecosystem which is constantly evolving, so too are the businesses around us.

In the business ecosystem, customers, governments, education institutions, assets, workers, capital markets, the environment and technology are all interacting with each other. These levers are constantly changing as we continue to find equilibrium between the digital and old industrial economies and behaviours. These changes create both opportunities and disruptive challenges.

Businesses generally go through four phases in their life span: startup, growth, maturity and finally decline or reinvention (more on this in a moment).

One study by Innosight found that the 33-year average tenure of big businesses on the S&P 500 in 1965 narrowed to 20 years in 1990 and is forecast to shrink to 14 years by 2026. In other words, the longevity or life spans of big businesses is being challenged at a faster rate.

Anecdotally, I share this view (in the western markets I have worked and observed anyway). Albeit, think that the trend may not be as drastic for smaller businesses (who should be able to manoeuvre quicker).

☸️ Spin that reinvention wheel 💃🏻 🕺🏻

“In order to keep up with the world of 2050, you will need not merely to invent new ideas and products — you will above all need to reinvent yourself again and again” — Yuval Noah Harari

I like these words. Sure the context is more about individuals and 2050 is a long way away. But I think it is still a useful thought. If we agree/assume that business life spans will continue to be challenged, then the need to reinvent again and again becomes crucial to stay in the game (and avoid decline).

The good news is that reinvention can happen in multiple ways — gradual adaptation and evolution over time (just like Orcas!), an intensive effort to transform or a mix of both.

The mediocre news is that reinvention is not always easy, so here are a few points which I think can help to make it happen:

  • Take a hyper-focus on value. This means working out what is desirable to customers, feasible to build and financially viable to create.
  • Don’t be scared to kill… Embrace the opportunity to let go of past investments and thinking. These can be emotionally-charged decisions but present a chance to beat sunk costs (which are the kryptonite of innovation).
  • Play the long game. Create incentives for da people involved that are based on the business existing for a long time.
  • Be open to different business or product life spans. There is nothing wrong with saying let’s do this business or product for one month or a year and then move on to something else.
  • Embrace that smaller is fine. Newspapers and department stores may never be the behemoths that they were, but that doesn’t mean that they can’t be sustainable businesses going forward. Smaller revenue doesn’t always mean smaller profits.
  • Know your DNA. Leverage the strongest competitive advantages you have going forward. These are moats that you can build upon over time.

🐳⚪️ ⚫️Shoutout to the Orca’s…

Reinvention is cool because it can be the opposite of decline (which is not that cool…). For businesses in the digital age, reinvention — be it natural adaptation and evolution or intensive effort — is now often just part of the game.

Finally, a shout out to the Orca whales for giving me a new perspective to think about business ecosystems and life spans. The places you can learn things hey!


I write a monthly blog to explore thoughts on topics I enjoy like technology, strategy, business models, and how people and organisations deal with change. If you’re interested in following my scribbles — you can do so on LinkedIn or Medium.

Ben Kite

Written by

Ben Kite

From Melbourne. I scribble on business, technology and change.

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