Yesterday, I met with a server manufacturer that builds high quality products and does a really good job of distributing them around the world. However, that's not their real talent. Over the years, the company has remade itself several times -- producing many types of components and systems, and offering many types of service -- in response to rapid changes in the world economy, technology, and markets. They are good at becoming whatever the market needs them to be, but they are tired of being reactive instead of proactive.  

This is not unusual. Most business plans have to be altered or scrapped in response to forces outside the plan writer's control. I'm sure Google Wave seemed likely to surf to success by the folks behind it, but their barometer of the future gave a false reading.