Is It Too Much To Expect A Company To Last Forever?

We live in tough times. The Government is slashing left, right and centre. Fuel costs are at an all time high. Public spending is down. People focusing on debt repayment rather than spending on credit. All this means harsher trading conditions for businesses than we are used to.

Is it then, too much to expect a double glazing company, a business in an industry which has a notorious reputation of phoenixing, to stay in business for a relatively long period of time?

I know I’m potentially annoying the ‘no phoenixers allowed’ people here, and believe me, I’m with you on this one. But I’m just trying to see this from a slightly different angle. Things have been harder than they have been for about 75 years and it has taken it’s toll on some of the biggest companies we had in this country. Rover and Woolworths, both century old companies, both of which now cease to exist. HMV are on the brink of collapse as are Game/Gamestation.

We all moan in this industry about when companies go under. I think we all expect that companies should last forever. But when there are nearly 20,000 window companies in an industry that is saturated and competition is as fierce as ever, I think for some business, it really is too much to expect them to keep trading.

For some, economic movements happen too quickly for businesses to change business model and get caught out. For some, the wrong people are at the top of the company and just simply don’t know how to deal with more difficult trading conditions.

We all have this ethic of staying in business forever. But in some cases this ethic is simply way to rose-tinted for it to actually work. I’m not making excuses for these companies, I’m simply stating that this is a fact of business life.I’m still against serial phoenixers!