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In the late 1800s, when Gottfried Daimler built the world’s first automobile by mounting an engine on the back end of a stage coach, you can bet his neighbours thought he was wasting his time. Daimler must have wondered himself. But then a decade later, Daimler met Karl Benz, and together they convinced themselves they could build a market for the new machine.
Of course, it would be a niche market, although Daimler and Benz thought they could make it a big niche. In fact, in the early 1900s they tried to forecast just how big a niche it could be. Their answer: within 100 years, there could be as many as one million horseless carriages on the planet.
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We know now just how wrong they were. Drivers around the world today own some 700 million cars and our factories are churning out nearly 60 million cars a year.
They were so wrong it’s easy to overlook why. But they did have a method. Automobiles are owned by wealthy people, the pair had reasoned. More than that, automobiles are owned by people wealthy enough to hire chauffeurs. So Daimler and Benz looked at the best available economic models in order to estimate how many people could afford those chauffeurs, and came up with the number of one million.
Don Peppers and Martha Rogers delve into the Daimler example in their influential 2008 book, Rules to Break and Laws to Follow. They also emphasize that Daimler and Benz weren’t alone. Alexander Graham Bell was certain that the number of telephones would be permanently capped by how many operators could be hired to manually connect the wires, and it was scarcely more than a generation ago that IBM’s Tom Watson predicted the world would only need five computers.
Change is real, and as you read this issue’s special focus on farm machinery, you’ll see how machinery makers have changed in order to keep up with changes in farmers. We have fewer machinery makers who are battling it out for large combine and tractor markets. Beneath them, we have myriad short-line makers who specialize in niche markets. But even in the niche markets, we’re seeing huge change, including the building of global investments and international partnerships.
Farming has always had an advantage because it has kept the long term in view, compared to so many other sectors that are managed for short-term gains. Now, however, the long-term view has to be a view of a very different marketplace.
Consumers today are different, just as you’re different from your parents. You’ve changed the machinery manufacturers. Now, how are consumers going to change you?
It’s a humbling thought, and it drives us back to the core job ahead of agriculture. If we’re going to get through this, we have got to have consumers who trust us. That means us individually, not just collectively.
Are we getting it right? Let me know. You can reach me at 519-674-1449, or at
