One of the ironies of our times is the saying, ” the more you specialize, the more you generalize.” It used to be said that specialization means you have to know more and more about less and less, while generalizing means you have to know less about more and more. What the intense globalization and technology has shown us that what you really need to do is that both are viable strategies, and its up to you to choose where to make your stand.

The concept of whether to generalize or to specialize is a persistent question that a businessman has to answer everyday. It is also a question an employee has to answer everyday.

There are companies that are enormously successful by focusing, and there are companies that are successful by diversifying. If you look at Walmart, or Amazon.com, these are companies that have made it huge by offering everything under one roof, or one website. For every business book that says you should focus on core competence, there is also another book that tries to subscribe to proper diversification. For every company that falters because of lack of focus, there are companies like Nike, which is able to diversify from just shoes to all kinds of sports products.

If you look at the technology, there is Lexmark, which almost does one thing very well – printing technology. If you look at HP, you see a company that is trying its mark on printers, servers, storage, personal computers, gadgets and desktops. Both are leaders in their field.

For the employee, then that is also a choice. Do you want to learn Java, or C# programming, and also network administration? There are numerous openings for these skills. However, you can also choose a niche – for instance, if you are a visual foxpro programmer or a COBOL programmer, there are not many openings for those kind of skills, but when they are, its also a boost – you have few competitors, and therefore can command a premium.

Everyday we look for people who have certain specialized skills, but we also look for managers who are ‘generalist’, who are not too focused on the trees that they cannot see the forest. Great managers are normally developed by still rotating them on various departments as they go up the ladder so that they will know and understand different parts of the company.

When you go to the mall, there are numerous examples… there are stores that specializes just on lighters. There are stores that do only game cards. There are stores that do only French fries. There are stores that do only fresh juices. Many are doing well. Conversely, the mall, or the department stores themselves is a testament that while there is growth in specializing, there are also growth opportunities for trying to offer ‘everything’.

My company is also doing both. While we continue to grow our store NGenius, which in essence offers a wide range of gadgets and computers, we also see growth in our concept stores, like Lenovo, which practically sells only Lenovo desktops and notebooks, plus a few others. If you go to the SM cyberzone now, more and more general computer stores are sprouting up, while more and more concept stores are also being opened.

When business decisions need to be made or products/services need to be planned, what niche you want to pursue, or what focus you want to put in is a very big decision you have to contemplate.