By: Delaney Tosh

The current doom and gloom stories in the news of business disaster being spelled out caused by rapidly rising fuel costs and the US housing crisis are driving me nuts. Where everyone else, it seems, sees doom, I see opportunity. I also wonder how some of the industries first hit hard by this situation were so taken by surprise. Didn't the owners/managers think about the risks inherent in their business? Didn't they have a plan? I also wonder why they don't do something different with their business model to avoid the demise of their current business. I wonder if shortsightedness is really just a state of being stuck -- stuck with tunnel vision and seeing things from only one perspective.

Disruptions in the business environment: crisis or opportunity?

What do you see? When looking at a list of disruptions it is easy to see that with some of them, there would be inherent risks to your own business. What strategies do you have to minimize the impact of these risks? What opportunities do you see for innovation in your business?

• Technology
• Regulatory, political shifts
• Macro economic, societal shifts
• Commodity scarcity
• Rapid price increases, commodity pricing
• Tight labour market
• Shrinking markets

Take the recent rapid increase in fuel costs. This certainly poses a risk to many different types of businesses. And the risk is obvious - rapidly rising cost of goods sold paired with the increases in some of your expenses equals an eroded bottom line. On the flip side, the opportunities are vast and will allow forward-thinking players to introduce innovations, in products, markets, or processes that will transform the way companies do business and consumers behave.

So, as a business owner, do you ask, "What can we do to insulate against these threats and preserve our business model?" Or do you ask, "What are some ideas that could be turned into sustainable economic value?"