Why Companies and People Need to Re-tool
Nine years ago when I was 52 I decided that I was sick of retirement and that I wanted to go back to work. I was also sick of sales, a career I practiced for 20 years. I decided I needed to find some skills that employers wanted. I found a program at the University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee that gave me just that. It cost me $10,000 but it gave me a whole new set of skills that I could sell to employeers. I became a programmer.
Why did I do that rather than just resell my previous skill set from a long career in Information Technology sales. Technology changes rapidly. Eleven of the thirteen companies I worked for over the past 30 years no longer exist. They were overtaken by technology. Someone else came along with a better, cheaper, faster way of doing the same job or the job got eliminated by advancing technology.
The same thing happens to people too. I’m sick of hearing obsolete engineers whine about being displaced by foreign engineers. If you skills are old go our and get some new ones. You should have been updating yourself all along, then your job would not have been outsourced quite as quickly.
Companies need to eat their best technology also. Look at Apple. They give the customers more value at the same price point every year to six months. If your company isn’t doing something similar expect that some other company will come along any eat you lunch. It is the American way. It is also the Chinese way and the Indian way and the Rumanian way and the global economy way.
Get a grip.
1 opinion for Why Companies and People Need to Re-tool
hhcv
Jul 20, 2007 at 6:29 pm
This is very, very true.
In the ‘old economy’ manufacturers were told that their wares should be either the cheapest or the best quality.
In the new economy, however, only those firms that are able to deliver both can truly create customer value.
Engineers, as you point out, need re-tooling in order to create better-quality solutions for their customers. Stay in one place too long and off-shore competitors will soon catch up leaving the hiring decision down to a price war (not fun for either party).
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