Three essential elements for business success

For a business to be successful, it needs three essential ingredients:
1) A right long term strategy
A business without a good long term strategy won't succeed in long term.

2) A strong product development capability
A successful business brings in products and services that create value for the consumers. Business need to know what customers want, and anticipate what customers may want in the future.

3) Operational excellence
In the end, day-to-day operation is key to success. You can have a great vision, excellent product portfolio, without a tightly controlled operation, the business may not be able to make any money. A business that cannot make money is not sustainable.

Here are a few example of businesses that possess all the above three ingredients: Apple Computer, General Electric, 3M, Starbucks, eBay, Intel, QualComm, and Corning.

Here are a few companies that do not have all the ingredients:
HP under Carly Fiorina, having only grand vision, but lacking operation control.
Motorola under Chris Galvin, lack of all three.