Business Development:

Sustainable Growth

The Art of Effective Competition

The Art, Science, and Practice

The Essence of Competition

Competition is all about value: creating it and capturing it. A fundamental rule in crafting a competitive strategy is to view competition from the other player's viewpoints.

Competitive Strategies: 2 Types

Todays' Era of Hypercompetition

Hypercompetition is a key feature of a new economy. Not only is there more competition, there is also tougher and smarter competition. "Hypercompetition"⁵ is a state in which the rate of change in the competitive rules of the game are in such flux that only the most adaptive, fleet, and nimble organizations will survive.

New customers want it quicker, cheaper, and they want it their way. The fundamental quantitative and qualitative shift in competition requires organizational change on an unprecedented scale. In this new economy, competitive advantages must constantly be reinvented, and organization becomes the fundamental source of distinctive capabilities.

Competitive Strategies

• Customer Value Proposition

  • Survival Strategy: Low cost/benefit ratio

  • Market Leadership Strategy: creating higher customer value and positioning... More

Yin and Yang of Value Innovation

Blue Ocean Strategy: 6 Principles

Blue ocean strategy is about revolutionary value innovation.

The six principles drive the successful formulation and execution of Blue Ocean Strategy. These principles attenuate the six risks... More

Building Your Sustainable Competitive Advantage

Sustainable competitive advantage is the prolonged benefit of implementing some unique value-creating strategy based on unique combination of internal organizational resources and capabilities that cannot be replicated by competitors... More

Sustainable Competitive Advantage

Your Differentiation Strategy

"What this new competition is often able to exploit is the fact that buying behavior isn't just about people and income, it's also about how dissatisfied consumers are with present alternatives."⁶ Choosing among multiple options is always based on differences, implicit or explicit, so you ought to differentiate in order to give the customer a reason to chose your product or service. Thus, "differentiation is one of the most important strategic and tactical activities in which companies must constantly engage. It is not discretionary."⁶ The concept of being unique or different is far more important today than it was ten years ago. The key to successful competing is differentiation... More

Barriers to Entry

Barriers to entry are circumstances particular to a given industry that create disadvantages for new competitors attempting to enter the market... More

The Five Things You Must Know To Win

Excerpts from the "Art of War", Sun Tzu, app. 500 BC

• Victory comes from knowing when to attack and when to avoid battle... More

The Art of War: Planning

By: Sun Tzu

Competition Through Innovation

With the enormous competition markets today are driven by choice: your targeted customers have too many choices, all of which can be fulfilled instantly. Competition through innovation, supported by your differentiation strategy, is thus more important than price competition. If your enterprise allows itself to lag behind in the race to generate new or improved goods and services, and better ways to produce and run them, you are putting your future on the line... More

80/20 Law of Competition

80/20 Principle helps you to direct your attention where the real threat of competition exists. According to the 80/20 Principle², over time, 80% of the market will tend to be supplied by 20% of the suppliers.

But the world wouldn't rest long in the 80/20 equilibrium. There are always changes to market structure caused by competitors' innovations.

The 80/20 Theory of the Firm can also be used to break you business down into competitive segments in order to examine its profitability. A competitive segment is a part of your business where you face a different competitor, or different relative competitive positions. "Thinking about competitive segments lobs you straight at the most important way to split and think about your business".² The most profitable segments where your company is also well positioned, and that are also attractive markets - they are growing, have high barriers to entry for new competitors, have more demand than capacity, face no threat from competing technologies, and have high bargaining power vis-a-vis customers and suppliers, – need to be grown most aggressively.