Even in his 200th year, Darwin has never been so relevant

As anyone that hasn’t been living in a cave is aware, it is 200 years since the birth of one of mankind’s favourite sons, Charles Darwin.

Any self respecting scientist/atheist/human being will agree that his theories have completely changed the way we view the world and ourselves, but I think sometimes we forget how survival of the fittest really does apply to almost everything we do.

The simple mathematics that anything that is not good enough dies out, and therefore brings about constantly improving standards and fresh competition, has never been more evident than in today’s credit crunch.

For a long time, businesses have been getting away with poor bookkeeping and financial management, keeping themselves afloat by revaluing their property or topping up their loans. This basically cheated the ‘survival of the fittest’ system and it has now come up and bitten back in a big way.

To survive in the new climate, companies need to adapt to the situation and use the crisis to their benefit.

As an example, my family has been selling their milk (we’re farmers) to a company that was top heavy in management and basically inefficient in how they balanced their books resulting in them charging over inflated prices to cover their backs, leaving a huge amount of disgruntled farmers in their wake.

Here’s where evolution comes in.

A few months ago, a representative of a new dairy turned up on our doorstep. The dairy saved money by having an efficient staff model and not spending money on expensive chemical tests (that search for harmless bacteria and butterfat) and could therefore offer more money for our milk as well as an effective sales transfer and good customer service. Needless to say where my family now takes its business. The said dairy is currently cleaning up with business and set to make an absolute fortune over the next few years, by adapting to the situation and, more importantly, DOING IT QUICKLY.

Businesses have got away with inefficiency for too long in the world of easy credit and now only the sharpest and easily adaptable businesses are going to survive the crisis.

With respect to everyone that has suffered as a result of the crisis (all of us), there is a slight silver lining that industry standards and practice are sure to improve, because if they don’t, they’ll be gone before you can say ‘0% interest’.