“Successful companies tend to fall into three traps that make the glory days fleeting. First is the physical trap in which big investments in the old systems or equipment prevent the pursuit of fresher, more relevant investments. There’s the psychological trap, in which company leaders fixate on what made them successful and fail to notice when something new is displacing it. Then, there’s the strategic trap, when a company focuses purely on the marketplace of today and fails to anticipate the future...” Vijay Govindarajan (Dartmouth Tuck School of Business. Courtesy of the US News and World Report.)

As I read this online article many months back, posted in the US News and World Report in August 19, 2010, by Rick Newman, profiling 10 great companies that lost their edge: Blockbuster (a video-rental chain), Dell, Eastman Kodak, Microsoft, Motorola, Sears, Sony, Sun Microsystems, Toys “R” Us, and Yahoo, I began to ponder deeply what factors could have been responsible for such a reversal in fortunes.

Now, whether the reasons advanced or the content of the article is correct is not the purpose here. Instead, it is the fact that organisations lose their edge for diverse reasons, and the goal here is to ensure we realise that the foundation of every endeavour matters.

The idea is for start-ups to look at three key areas as they venture into any undertaking: Vision, Mission and Culture. I shall feature a fourth (Team) in a subsequent writing. These are the foundations for building enduring and top-notch companies. The inspiration matters and every business idea must be seen through the lens of conception to completion, as it sets out, or is in the process of development.