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28 SMT007 MAGAZINE I JANUARY 2021 organization, there is little more management can do to demonstrate an employee's worth. Henry Ford understood this. The anecdote goes that when a consultant, upon seeing one of Ford's employees sitting with his feet up on his desk, asked Ford why he paid that man $50,000 a year, Ford replied, "Because a few years ago, that man came up with something that saved me $2 million. And when he had that idea, his feet were exactly where they are now." Greater Agility Continuous improvement future-proofs your business. Incremental changes to adapt and optimize are at the core of creating an agile company. There is a close relationship between continuous improvement and company evolu- tion that requires the presence of human obser- vation. In a recent conversation on the topic of smart versus automated processes, Calumet Electronics' Dr. Meredith Labeau said: "You're not going to get there if you completely remove the humans who are watching and learning the process, understanding how to iterate through that process, and then under- standing that process control enough to say, 'I can move it this way and get this result.' And, 'Hey, that result, while it was out of process, is next-generation technology.' We fundamen- tally believe that humans are the future, cou- pled with some really great machinery." Grow the Business All these benefits contribute to growing the business. By doing more with fewer resources, and doing it more effi- ciently, small changes add up incrementally to big results. The knowl- edge that comes from consistently analyzing, improving and measur- ing processes contrib- utes directly, allowing the business to grow. The Rever team states, "A lack of visibility will prevent you from reach- ing your goals. Remember that no business can grow without realizing what's causing it to stop growing." Conclusion As quaint as it may sound, continuous improvement is never-ending; it's contin- uous. Change is continuous, too. A recent example from the U.S. entertainment indus- try helps make this point. Blockbuster was a video rental company (it technically still is, with one remaining Blockbuster retail outlet in Bend, Oregon). Sources say that, at its peak, Blockbuster had 9,000+ stores and employed 58,000+ people worldwide. Blockbuster had a good business model and dominated the video rental industry. No surprise, then, that Block- buster management was reluctant to change even as the market changed around them. Enter companies like Netflix and, a bit later, Redbox. Netflix began in 1997 as a DVD movie rental service, operating through mail-order and a website instead of a storefront. The Netflix subscription model—a flat monthly fee with unlimited rentals and no late charges—changed how its customers consumed the content they rented. The convenience of having a DVD show up in the mail, ready to watch, without rental restrictions, created deep customer loy- alty to which Blockbuster did not adequately respond. When Netflix further evolved in 2007, introducing the streaming option, Blockbust- er's unchanged business model was simply unable to compete. In contrast, Netflix inten- tionally innovated new distribution meth- ods that were not only less expensive, but The last Blockbuster store on the planet is located in Bend, Oregon.