Almost every business that is started copies the businesses it competes with. Everyone copies each other. It’s how it goes. They compete on business models and best practices. But, it doesn’t have to be this way.
Tag Archives: competition
Obsession: The Difference Between Good and Great
Illustration by Christian Laborin
Survival in the 21st century demands a ceaseless obsession with your customers and with the possibilities that new technologies can offer them. When hiring or collaborating, we want to work with the most talented people. But have you ever thought about the most obsessive? Unlike naturally talented people, the most obsessive will challenge you and make you better. …
Chaos Learning: The Key To Mastering Uncertainty
It’s a given that The Next Economy will be driven by 10 essential technologies, some of which are already a big part of our daily lives. What’s not a given is we don’t know how everything will play out. Still, it is imperative for leaders to understand how these technologies will shape business and society, for every organization is slowly turning into a technology company but are not acting like one.
This changes how leaders think about strategy. …
Platform Revolution: How Platforms Change Strategy with Geoffrey Parker
The internet is the big disruptor of our time, changing the advantage from products to platforms. Case in point, Uber, Airbnb and PayPal. They all disrupted their markets when they launched. Today they are industry leaders.
What’s the secret to their success?…
Innovators widen their view of competition
I’m sure you’ve been in meetings where everyone worries about competition more than they worry about customers. It is a fact that for traditionally run businesses, any talk about strategy quickly shifts to competition. It’s unavoidable and it pisses me off. Traditional business practice is based on beating the competition, which assumes that there is competition that looks and plays just like you if you are starting a business. …
Why is competitive advantage temporary?
An often asked question. Yet, there are those who think that competitive advantages are everlasting.
Competitive advantage, it seems to me, has become an instrument of finance. As in, how can our company accumulate hoards of cash to become sustainable?
The defining metric for said advantage is profits. That is a mindset, I believe, of playing not to lose.
Accumulating a war chest of money doesn’t mean you will outlast the next wave of change, you have things upside down, for an investment in innovation is an investment in your future.…
What argument can you win?
in Innovation, Strategy
There are 2 kinds of warfare: asymmetrical and stupid. —DR. CONRAD CRANE, DIRECTOR OF THE U.S. ARMY HISTORICAL SOCIETY AND AUTHOR OF THE U.S. ARMY/MARINE CORPS COUNTERINSURGENCY FIELD MANUAL
I have a client who competes with Starbucks. Or at least that is what they think. I don’t think they do because they have no argument to win. What is Starbucks good at? There are other factors at play, but these are the main ones: They fill the middle between your home and work, and they are also known for making good enough coffee.
These are not attributes where my client can make a confident argument that they can win. And my client can’t just turn itself into a roaster. And it shouldn’t.
So what to do? The answer is simple but difficult: You do what the other guy can’t or won’t.…