Slow growth - true or false?
Apparently the economy in the previous decade was nice - non-inflationary constant expansion, but our post bubble world is grim - growth really is modest.
While the economists can spot high level patterns (the shift of growth from west to east, for example) they are not so good at spotting the changes on the smaller scale. A good example of this was when the credit bubble became a credit crunch and recession threatened it was not obvious to most analysts which businesses would be hardest hit as many items of spend (particularly household spend) were simply not around at the previous major recession.
One of the big plusses of working in the technology sector is that there will always be new things of which some will grow extremely rapidly.
This is not going to change any time soon, unless someone changes the basic design of homo sapiens.
The iPad is a great contemporary example of something new growing rapidly - zero to several million sales in a few months. It’s not the first hot product this decade and it won’t be the last.
Now, it is no fun if what you have been offering is no longer wanted - consider the Lancashire handloom weavers of the 19th century and their rapid replacement by the power loom. Yes, hand loom weavers disappeared in one generation, but the makers of the new power looms saw sales of 400,000 over the same period. Overall growth was modest in the UK in the 19th Century (just over 1% per annum) but the innovation in how value was created was vast, with fortunes being made in the process.
As a society we are unlikely to be much wealthier by the end of the decade, so if you are selling commodity items in the UK (or most of the West for that matter) don’t expect much growth. However, if you have something innovative to offer don’t let the headlines of ‘slow growth forecast’ put you off achieving your full potential.
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