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&lt;p&gt;Blockbuster was doomed to failure the moment Netflix came along: that&#39;s one narrative arc that has been appearing ever since the video rental giant started staggering. And it&#39;s gained not a little traction since Blockbuster&#39;s bankruptcy filing last week. Which is a shame, because it happens to be untrue.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Are there lessons in Netflix&#39;s rise that execs can learn from? Of course: and the company will likely become something of a case study for anyone even remotely connected with a start-up. (In fact, it&#39;s already there).&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;But the real lessons come from studying the role Blockbuster played in its own demise. Granted, the company had problems&amp;mdash;including a massive physical footprint that made it very difficult to pivot to a new business model. But it also had something that Netflix didn&#39;t: an existing customer base and strong brand recognition. Had the firm recognized Netflix as a threat early enough&amp;mdash;or paid heed to changing consumption patterns&amp;mdash;it could have fought the company off. Or just acquired it.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;So what can those seeking to prevent an existing company from meeting a similar fate take from the case&amp;mdash;other than a fatalistic view that their demise is inevitable?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Well, as already suggested, the major lesson is that it didn&#39;t have to happen that way. And the minor lessons essentially come down to paying attention beyond the confines of your own company:&lt;/p&gt;&lt;h3&gt;Seek alternative perspectives&lt;/h3&gt;&lt;p&gt;One of the problems with working within an industry for any length of time is that you can get bogged down in the details of that industry, and lose a sense of how the bigger picture affects what you do. While there&#39;s no easy remedy for that, keeping up with news and perspectives from outside your industry&amp;mdash;whether they come from people in other areas of your company, or from somewhere else entirely.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;h3&gt;Keep up with developments in other industries&lt;/h3&gt;&lt;p&gt;Obviously the folks at Blockbuster knew every nuance of the movie rental business. What they didn&#39;t grasp was the transformative power of the internet. Had they had more of a grasp on emerging technology, they might well have been able to stave off the threat from Netflix before it emerged.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;h3&gt;Don&#39;t get too comfortable&lt;/h3&gt;&lt;p&gt;It&#39;s difficult to compare Blockbuster&#39;s position in the 1990s to its subsequent decline and not come to the conclusion that complacency played a big role. While there&#39;s no one way to ensure that you&#39;re not falling victim to the same kind of thinking, treating any potential competitor as a threat is a good starting place. And figuring out what it is customers like about that competitor can be a good starting point for overhauling your own business model to ensure that it doesn&#39;t become obsolete.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;&lt;strong&gt;--Phil Stott, Vault.com&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

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