The positive side of the economic down-turn - How did you adapt to changing conditions and environment?

Recently I had a discussion with one of my colleague regarding the economic crisis, I defined the struggling companies as mammoths who needs to be fed and the surviving are like rats, it was said during the ice age mammoths like dinosaurs perished and mammals like rats survived eating the carcass of the dead, counting on the survival of the fittest, the law of nature, companies should be built from the scratch to conceive & deliver minimizing expense with a competitive edge to quality, at the same time buffering up with alternatives. What we find here most of the companies search for alternatives only at the time of crisis, and effective crisis management is not in place.