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“Do you have a formal business plan?”

This question is likely to be asked of you to satisfy the inquiry of a major shareholder, lending institution or a major customer.

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Where are you as you read this? Are you in your corporate office? Perhaps you are in your home office? Or are you in a coffee shop? Maybe you are in your automobile, an airplane or an airport lounge. You might be in a hotel room or your living room. You could be reading this in print form, online at a desktop, a laptop, on your smart phone or a tablet computer.

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I am not an economist; I am a consultant. I have an engineering degree and four decades of business experience; more than 30 of which are connected to the furniture industry. In spite of my limited experience, it doesn’t make me ignorant of the world’s events or conditions.

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For several decades the conventional wisdom within the office furniture industry was “it’s a lagging industry.” This meant that recessions and subsequent rebounds and recovery didn’t coincide with what was happening in the consumer economy, which is often referred to as the “the rest of the economy.” Downturns and rebounds typically happened six to 18 months after recessions and recoveries.

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Unless you are connected to the working, learning, healing or leisure furniture industries, you might not know what NeoCon is. For the less informed, NeoCon is an annual event – albeit a pilgrimage – to Chicago’s Merchandise Mart each June to see, touch, experience and sell new products and is an acronym for “National Exhibition of Office and Contract Furnishings.”

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The typewriter era is officially over. The world’s last manufacturer of typewriters produced by Godrej & Boyce in Mumbai, India, ceased production in 2009 and converted the factory to produce home refrigerators. Obsolete technologies don’t die right away, they just move to places like India.

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It is well recognized by those who regularly read this column that I am often critical of the working, learning, healing and leisure furniture industries for not embracing technology and innovation at the same pace as many others do. Perhaps it’s not a “nice” thing to say, but I think this industry is a follower, not a leader.