“If you don’t disrupt your own business, someone else will.” This famous quote by Peter Thiel perfectly captures the predicament faced by many businesses where leaders neglected growth or bold optionality. The founder of TELEMART, one of Ukraine’s leading players in the gaming hardware market, thinks and acts differently.
Starting as a niche specialist in assembling gaming computers, the company now faces the classic dilemma of growth and development: the current business model no longer ensures sustainable progress, while entering the mass market risks diving into the “red ocean” of fierce competition.
“In today’s world, it’s no longer enough to simply sell equipment. Netflix didn’t kill video rental with better content but with a fundamentally new model of delivering value to customers,” says Satya Nadella, CEO of Microsoft, describing the entertainment industry’s transformation, which includes gaming.
TELEMART.UA, with the help of Strategic®, is launching a strategic business redesign project lasting 2–3 months that includes:
- Developing a new strategic vision and value proposition
- Identifying sources of growth and profitability
- Creating a roadmap for transformation
- Restructuring the corporate governance system
Key questions the team will address:
- How can we shift the retail model to be customer-centric in an era where gamers increasingly choose cloud gaming over purchasing equipment?
- Where can we find new sources of profitability as traditional hardware sales become less lucrative?
- How can we scale the service component? Most importantly: What exactly should the service entail?
- And should we remain solely focused on gaming in light of modern technological trends and market opportunities and limitations in Ukraine?
“In a world where Amazon and other giant platforms can sell hardware at near-zero margins, only those who can offer unique value beyond simple distribution will survive,” says Jeff Bezos.
This project is a perfect case study for founders of successful, specialized, niche businesses—now beyond the small-business stage—who are contemplating their next steps for diversification and profitability growth. As Andy Grove famously said: “Only the paranoid survive, constantly seeking opportunities to reinvent their business.”