When people speak about competition they often associate competition with a coin. On the head side, competition raises productivity. Through competition, ideas are stimulated, brain is triggered, nerves are paced and adrenalin rushes beyond the limit.
To some people competition even means as psychological satisfactions. Without it life would be dull and unattractive.
On the tail side, competition is believed as a simplistic way to select best of the bests. In this world of survival, competition has demarcated those who can perform and those who can’t. The performer can join in and those who can’t must step aside.
Likewise in business, competition is invisibly created as a mean for achieving better results. Through competition, business leaders unleash their creativities and ideas for the sake of business survival.
As shareholders are more demanding than ever before, firms take early measures before their competitors take charge. Business executives try each and every measure to ensure they are not in the ousted list of the next shareholder conspiracy meetings.
Consequently, as competition intensifies, it gets harder to devise a precise recipe to outpace rivals. Every strategy has been imitated. All innovative ideas have been copied. Yet, the escape route is nowhere near. As a result, business is converging into a unified enterprise through merging and acquisition.
In the dire needs of survival, the ‘eureka’ moment shows up. Thanks to regulations, anti trust laws, business competitive supervisory commissions, supranational institutions or whatever you call it, the hope is not dimming.
In fact, it is becoming popular to start scrutinizing competitor glitches through the lens of regulations. Instead of using business consulting firms, the not so fortunate firms have partnered with their lawyers to find a new way of competing: by suing competitor.
Take a look at business sections of the Jakarta Post. You will find frequent news on competitive violations charged to large enterprises.
From the largest software company in the world to the most dominant chip maker, they all face similar allegations: unfair business practices.
But as you will see, this ‘unfair’ definition is relative depending on where you stand for. For a marketer, creating a solid distribution channel through partnering with distributors and agents is a good strategy.
Unfortunately, if you happen to win the market through this strategy, ‘partnering’ with distributors could be translated by your competitor as ‘pressing’ distributors to sell your product.
So if you are on the loser side you have the right to associate ‘partnership’ as ‘pressing’ rather than ‘cooperating’.
Say as a business executive you are advised by your consultant to launch a product with its ‘added values’ wrapped in a bundle. You can argue that your company launches a customer centric product.
Alas, those suffering from sales drop can argue that your company uses a ‘cheating tactic’ by selling different lucrative products within a single offer.
Nowadays, with all these regulation gizmos, ‘market leader’ can be interpreted as ‘monopoly’. ‘Partnership’ can be translated as ‘pressing. ‘Customer centric’ can be claimed as 'cheating’.
Yet with all these things, one fact remains. Most of those starting the litigation are those losing their market shares. And guess what, the loser often prevails. Welcome to the world of a regulated market.
Perhaps business consultants need to add their dictionary with an updated ‘competitive strategy’ term. While the old phrase saying ‘if you cannot beat them, join them’ seems to leave no space for alternatives in the past, now they have a third option: ‘accuse them!’.
