Looking for the ultimate competitive strategy
(Published 21.10.2015)
Yes, you have read your Porters, Mintzbergs and Ansoffs. You know the wisdoms of Sun Tzu and Clausewitz. Now, what would you take along when you sail off for a lifetime trip across the oceans that may shine in all shades of red and blue? What is the ultimate guidance, the Excalibur that beats other strategies?
Suggest me one, or comment what others have suggested.
I throw out the first candidate:
Be your own toughest competitor.
Beat your own leading product with a better one before other competitors do.
Create and deliver the future before others even sketch it.
And now let’s beat the above one with something better. Your turn to write.
(And below comes the first challenger on 25.11.2015)
“Business is cooperation when it comes to creating a pie,
and competition when it comes to dividing it up.
This duality can easily make business relationships feel paradoxical.
But learning to be comfortable with this duality is the key to success.”
(Brandenburger & Nalebuff, 1998)
This quote was proposed to this page by Ville Eloranta,
and Ville in turn gave the credits to his student Esko.
So now we just stepped aside the whole idea of competitive strategies and added the concept of co-adaptive strategies. In real life, that happened while discussing the ideas of Sun Tzu and Donald Norman. Looking at both the competitive and co-adaptive strategies from above, I see one common nominator: Being prepared. Be prepared better than others, or together with others. Could that be our ultimate high-level strategy:
Be prepared.
“Think out beforehand any situation that might occur,
so that you know the right thing to do at the right moment, and are willing to do it.
Make yourself strong and active and able to do the right thing at the right moment, and do it.”
(Baden-Powell, 1908)