UTC is a hell of a man for a New Year’s resolution, most of them ridiculously optimistic and involving drinking less.
This year he loudly vowed at the Christmas party to resolve to “focus on letting go of his past bad decisions and move forward with a positive approach to life”, to the amusement of the room. But he was inspired to his latest “you can’t win ‘em all” resolution after reading a press release about the biggest business blunders ever made, and how they weren’t the end of the world after all.
A few examples, you say? Well, there’s HarperCollins rejecting the opportunity to publish Harry Potter, which went on to become a £19bn franchise. Or Decca Records rejecting the Beatles. Or how about a company called Excite dismissing the opportunity to buy Google for £750k – it’s now worth £180bn. Or Blockbuster Video skipping the chance to snap up Netflix.
The Christmas party conversation then moved on to the best disasters that the team could remember in the retail industry, and there’s been a few. New Coke, anyone? Crashed and burned. Coke Life seems to be heading the same way, mind you. Remember that time when McVitie’s changed its name to McV, realised that this was a stupid thing to do and promptly changed it back? How about Irn-Bru and whisky premix? And what happened to the entire energy shots category that was set to be the Next Big Thing?
Feel free to remember some of your own business blunders and send them in to the auld yin so he can add to his list. 
