I recently came across the story of Royal Enfield’s turnaround.
In 2000, the company was close to shutting down.
Sales had dropped to 2,000 motorcycles a month from a factory built for 6,000.
The products had issues.
Oil leaks.
Gear failures.
Electrical problems.
At the same time, competitors were entering the market with better performance and higher reliability.
Which raises an important question.
What actually turns a business around when both product and market are against you?
The decision made was not to expand.
It was to focus.
Business lines were cut.
Attention was placed on fewer products.
Employees were asked to use the motorcycles daily.
To experience the failures directly.
Problems were not assumed.
They were observed.
There is a deeper point here.
This was not just a business strategy shift.
It was a reliability shift.
Reliability was brought into focus
and aligned with the business goal of survival.
Because without a product that consistently works,
no amount of strategy, branding, or expansion will hold.
There is a parallel here in product development.
When performance issues appear, the instinct is often to add.
New features.
New variants.
New markets.
But added complexity can hide the real problem.
Which leads to an important question.
Are you improving reliability
or expanding around instability?
Reliability is not just an engineering concern.
It is a business lever.
When reliability improves:
Warranty costs drop.
Customer trust increases.
Margins expand.
Growth becomes sustainable.
This is often the missing piece between:
Struggling to survive
and dominating a market.
As you think about your product:
Where are the recurring failures?
Are they clearly understood or just managed?
Is reliability aligned with your business goals?
Most companies try to grow their way out of problems.
Few fix the foundation first.
That difference shows up in the results.
If this topic resonates, I wrote a book called “Devastate the Competition – How to Take Market Share Through Robust Design” that focuses specifically on this connection between reliability and business performance.
It’s one of the few resources that treats reliability not just as engineering—but as a strategic advantage.
You can find it here: