Five Killer Strategies for Trouncing the Competition

by George Stalk, Jr. and Rob Lachenauer

-Rajendra Bahadur Thapa -Rajib Kumar Hyoju -Sudip Joshi -Sudan Kayastha MsTIM 2011 Tribhuwan Univeristy, Institute of Engineering. Pulchowk Campus, Nepal

Hardball
Management thinking has gone soft, with its emphasis on squishy things like corporate culture and the coddling of customers. We will the playbook for a dog-eat-dog world.
Winner in business play rough and dont apologize for it.

7/30/2012

The Hardball Manifesto

Focus relentlessly on competitive advantage. Strive for extreme competitive advantage. Avoid attacking directly. Exploit peoples will to win. Know the caution zone.

7/30/2012

Focus relentlessly on competitive advantage

Hardball players strive to widen the performance gap between themselves and competitors. Eg: Transportation cost of reduction of wall -mart

7/30/2012

Strive for extreme competitive advantage

To hardball players, theres something far more important than competitive advantage. Often, the hardball competitor has an economic system that is unassailable.

Study us all you want

7/30/2012

Avoid attacking directly.

History shows that a military force must be several times more than enemies to win in direct attract.

7/30/2012

Exploit peoples to win

Hardball requires guts as well as smarts. Victory often belongs to those who want it the most.
Spirit is engaging our minds and our hearts and our souls to do the right thing. Southwest spirit is you. We came. We saw. We kicked tail.

Training Video

Advertizement

7/30/2012

Know the caution zone.

The hardball player ventures closer to the boundary, whether established by law or social conventions, than competitors would ever dare. legal and accounting counsel to determine what they can and cant do.

7/30/2012

Know the caution zone. Contd.

Does it break any existing laws? Is the action good for the customer? Will competitors be directly hurt by it? Will the action touch a nerve in special-interest groups?
For ALL: At the risk of repetition, let us stress once again that hardball is not about breaking, or even bending, the law. It is not about crooked accounting, breaching contracts, stealing trade secrets, or predatory pricing. Its not about being mean. Well, not too mean. The nicest part of playing hardball is watching your competitors squirm.
7/30/2012 9

The Hardball Strategies

Devastate rivals profit sanctuaries. Plagiarize with pride. Deceive the competition. Unleash massive and overwhelming force. Raise competitors costs.

7/30/2012

10

Devastate rivals profit sanctuaries

Flooding the market with advertising or making across-the board price cuts Most effective strikes are surgical VacuCorp VS SweepCos Business Profit sanctuary for sweepCos was canisters type of vacuum cleaner

revenue profit

Devastate rivals profit sanctuaries contd.

Knowledge is the key to devastating a competitors profit Sanctuary Competitors costs and profitabilityby category, by geography and by account This will allow you to hone your attack strategy, adjust prices to inflict the most pain. Need to be alert to the legal limits of pricing strategies There is fine but real line between aggressive and predatory pricing Attack on your competitors profit sanctuary is liable to provoke a strong response

Plagiarize with pride

Hardball player doesnt fear or feel hesitate to steal any good ideas they see as long as it isnt nailed down by a robust patent

Hardball plagarism involves much more than appropriating a good ideas, they improve it on Simply replicating the details isnt enough
Eg. The other airlines that have tried-and failed to copy southwest

Ford did copy hondas program and improved upon it, marketing it aggressively to new-car buyers

Deceive the competition

Hardball players will mislead rivals to buy time- or to gain any other kind of competitive advantage Software company will announce vaporware that isnt ready for prime time. In auto industry, prototypes are sometime doctored up to throw off the competition.
Eg. Wausau Papers

Wausau would offer next-day service to its distributors in the major Midwestern cities and encourage them to order small quantities, some with custom specifications

Deceive the competition contd.

Press release that the company had been able to speed deliveries by holding large inventories of finished goods and by working long hours
But the company didnt signal that it had also undertaken a major shift in strategy and operations. wausau began buying commodity papers in rolls from its competitors, cutting and repackaging them as part of its overall offering

Unleash massive and overwhelming force

Hardball player prefer the indirect attack, sometimes they beat their competitors with the polar opposite Eg Eagle snack (Anheuser-Busch ) Vs Firto lays(Roger Enrico) Firto lays- Salty snacks-potato,corn and tortilla chips Its expansion into cookies and crackers New eagle brand salty snacks try to capture the market of Frito lays

Firtos lays concentrates companys energy, invest heavily in product quality, and came with up superior offering-better chips, better service and low price

Raise competitors cost

Successfully driving up a competitors costs without his knowing is on of the marks of a true hardball competitor. Ex. Large volume differences between a companys highest and lowest selling products or services -as was the case of federal-mogul and JpI Rising your competitors costs works well in certain situations, primarily when the complexities of a business introduce cost that can be misallocated.

Summary
The Manifesto Relearn the fundamental behaviors of winning: Focus relentlessly on competitive advantage. Strive for extreme competitive advantage. Avoid attacking directly. Exploit peoples will to win. Know the caution zone. The Strategies Deploy these in bursts of ruthless intensity: Devastate rivals profit sanctuaries. Plagiarize with pride. Deceive the competition. Unleash massive and overwhelming force. Raise competitors costs.

7/30/2012

18