Quality & Quantity: Should You Diversify?
Reading Time: 2 minutesCan quantity and quality co-exist?
Yesterday, I posted about infobesity and infoxication — the over-consumption of data. We are living in a quantity world. People need to have a few jobs or specialties to make ends meet. Big brands need to diversify their product lines in order to grow, while trying hard not to jump the shark and make things that are inconsistent with their core competencies. (I am reminded of the floor wax/dessert topping ad on Saturday Night Live.)
Plato (who was supposedly a very wise dude) said, “All things will be produced in superior quantity and quality, and with greater ease, when each man works at a single occupation, in accordance with his natural gifts, and at the right moment, without meddling with anything else.”
And the French novelist Emile Zola said, “If I cannot overwhelm with my quality, I will overwhelm with my quantity.”
We’ve seen companies like Crumbs and Blockbuster die dismal deaths because they were one trick ponies. And yet a company like Crocs is still alive and well. Lego apparently had to find the right combination of “bricks” to make its diversification strategy work.