A long time ago I tried to start a business in which I’d deliver basic consumer products to small provincial stores. I’d buy products from major wholesalers and sell them at small profit margins. I’d offer my customers products at close to wholesale prices and I’d deliver items as soon as there were ordered.
As soon as I started selling, however, distributors of the same products made life difficult for me. They’d stop my delivery truck and told my crew to leave the area because my business was infringing on their “territories.” When the delivery truck returned, they threatened them with legal action. They then threatened my customers, saying there would be no more deliveries of products.
I ended the business as soon as it started because of the endless harassment.
In the present day, the same customers I used to sell to can now buy almost anything they want thanks to the internet. By accessing e-commerce websites, provincial stores can buy the same products I used to sell and lots more at competitive prices. Many provincial distributors have closed shop as costs have climbed and margins have shrunk. The few that remain are very large and have updated their information systems to accommodate e-commerce but they struggle to stay competitive against upstart entrepreneurs selling rival merchandise.
Sometimes it feels downright impossible to make a change where we would like to see one. And sometimes it’s hard to stop change when we don’t want one. The distributors in my time didn’t want change and I had a hard time making any with my business. In the present day, distributors face a changing business landscape which requires constant adaptation.
Sometimes we need to be creative and persistent in finding change and making it happen. Sometimes change just happens when and where we least expect it and we have to be quick to adopt it else we fall behind or worse, we become obsolete or irrelevant.
Take traffic, for example. Manila (Philippines) traffic is one of the worst in the world, if not the worst. Countless ideas have been thrown for more than a decade to alleviate the chronic daily gridlock. Nothing has worked and commuters have had to endure hours in buses, trains, and cars to move around the city.
But in the last few years, Waze and other navigation applications have become popular as they help motorists move through traffic.
Motorcycles and bicycles have become the vehicles of choice for many people as they have enabled riders to weave through streets with less difficulty.
Businesses are using app-linked couriers, messengers, and transport providers to deliver their products. And as mentioned above, e-commerce is becoming the preferred choice of consumers to buy groceries, clothes, and all kinds of merchandise which are delivered to our doorsteps via a click of a computer mouse.
The traffic is still there but people have adopted. Change was made in how people navigate through traffic and how people buy the things they need or want. Much of the change was unexpected and much of the effect went beyond people’s expectations.
So, for the rest of us who did not expect change or have not yet fully accepted it, we end up scrambling to make up for lost ground.
For the rest of us who want to enable change, it can be a frustrating fight that tests our patience and resolve. But the potential rewards can be very much worth the trouble.
What can we do to make adoption of change or the enabling of change not only easier but also beneficial?
It starts with first discerning what we can change versus what we cannot change. We can’t change traffic but we can change how we work around it. We can’t change a distributor’s “territory” but we can change how products are marketed and delivered.
To find what we can change and what we can’t, we need to understand an issue from all sides and find a side where change can be made.
We’d need to define the problem before we can make a difference.
“Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.”
-Reinhold Niebuhr (American theologian)
This essay originally written January 06, 2019
Ellery's Essays 