Not long ago, Toshiba announced that they are pulling back HD DVD from the "war" between against Blu Ray of Sony and Panasonic.

They shutdown all HD DVD related hardware production completely. What a bold decision made their top leaders, don’t you think?

Usually, this kind of news brings down the stock value of a company but that is not the case of Toshiba this time.

The value of its stock went up the next day. It turned out that the market shows appreciation of the company’s movement. And if you are following the competition between HD DVD and Blu Ray, you wouldn’t be surprised by this result.

It was so obvious that Toshiba soon or later would lose the war. Sony, coupled with Panasonic, has more advantages. For instance, in hardware side, Toshiba had to compete against Play Station 3 which can play Blu Ray disc. In software side, Blu Ray has many movie companies supporting its format.

If the leaders of Toshiba decided to keep on going fighting Blu Ray, chances are that it will make financial wound gets bigger and deeper. The war could turn out as a very unprofitable situation for the companies and consumers. Just like the war between VHS (Panasonic) and Beta (Sony) video.

So, what can you learn from this?

Well, as the CEO of your company, you should be able to identify which part of your business that is not profitable. And then you have to make a brave decision to cut it off.

It would say that it is not something that is easy to do, but when you manage to do it, not only you could save some money but you also will have some kind of a relief feeling. By then, you can put more of your energy to grow other business that is more profitable.

Go now find out what projects of yours that are not making any profit …
and shut it down.