I just finished reading a research report discussing why and how banks are under extreme margin pressure. The report states:
“Conventional wisdom holds that a steep yield curve is good for banks — borrow short, lend long. With a Fed Funds rate of essentially zero and banks paying almost nothing for deposits as well, bank-funding costs are at all-time lows. Unfortunately, after a prolonged period of near-zero rates, bank assets (both loans and securities) are also re-pricing to all-time low levels. Banks also remain cautious about lending, choosing to park cash in safer, but lower yielding assets.”
These two points are symbolic of a series of actions that I'm seeing taking place in companies - both big and small. Every time a company makes the decision to focus on exploiting its current assets, rather than exploring how to deepen and expand those assets and the impact of those assets; it is behaving like the banks and television networks.
I’m concerned that many American companies are coming down on the wrong side of a critical, philosophical business question: “Are profits the result of having the right focus or are they the focus?.”
When banks stop lending, or television networks begin relying on cheap reality programming, they are making the decision that profits are the focus. When you’re focus is on profits, you start extracting value from your market and you stop taking real risks because they’re, well, risky.
When you focus on your customers and you answer the question – “what can we do to improve their lives like no one has done before,” and then you pursue that path with dogged determination; then you’re making the decision profits are the result of the right focus. When you make that decision, you see risk through a new prism, and while it does, in fact, represent risk it also provides great reward.
For more than 100 years, America has been the most profitable country in the world by focusing on taking the right risks and creating value better than any other nation. I sure hope we don’t lose that.