Creating a Nemesis to Survive in a Competitive World

The concept of having an enemy (real or imaginary) in order to excel has been around since the dawn of humanity, and is embedded in our very own nature; This concept will be demonstrated by drawing on parallels from the business, entertainment, political worlds:

Business: Procter and Gamble has multiple products that serve the same purpose (for example shampoos, Head and Shoulders and Pantene) – they chose to adopt this approach not only to have the biggest market coverage by capturing the most clientele, but also to boost their R&D units by competition among themselves to produce the best -of-breed product in the P&G offering. Therefore, if Head and Shoulders was number one vs. Pantene, or vice versa, who cares! In both cases P&G will come out as the winner and the R&D units of both products will share knowledge.

Entertainment: This is an easy one; Superman would be boring without Kryptonite – a challenge. Spiderman and his arch enemy “Venom”, the Autobots and the more powerful Decepticons, Flash Gordon and Emperor Ming, Rocky Balboa and Ivan Draco, etc…and the list goes on. The bottom line is that the hero must work hard and innovate in order beat the often more superior enemy in order to become number one (and save the world!)

Politics: this is self-explanatory. Once upon a time the world experienced bipolarity of two super powers and the stalemate of the Cold War between Nato and the Warsaw Pact. But it was a period when humanity saw the Space Race – in contrast, look at space discovery nowadays, all dreams of a manned mission to the moon or Mars are humble and shy (of course, accounting for the change of context and technology).

Military History: Achilles needed Hector as much as Scipio needed Hannibal to get immortalized in the annals of history; notable mention, same can be said for Saladin and Richard Lionheart.

What does all this mean in terms of the incumbent?

If the playing field is left almost empty as it is the case right now due to mega consolidation, then the drive to innovate will be low. But if it was a case of live or die, and fight or flight, then the innovation levels peak! – Law of the jungle, survival of the fittest/natural selection. The Art of War indicates that soldiers have to be exposed to “almost certain death” situations in order to reach peak prowess and savageness in battle (because it is the matter of their own survival at that moment, not only or merely following the general’s commands).

It is in the best interest of a monopolistic and well-established incumbent to create its own challenger or agile spin-off. This entity would be an IIEntity (Incumbent Initiated Entity), which would serve the same purpose of the incumbent, and would leverage on the existing best practices (to skip the maturity process). This entity would be given a head start to compensate for market credibility, and, shall provide services that are more competitive and even allowed to undercut the incumbent in its pricing model. Eventually, when the IIEntity gains a certain market standing by maintaining a presence in low cost locations, embracing the flexibility and adopting latest digital and platform technology, that’s when interesting events start to unfold. Competition starts, and, the incumbent begins to compete against its own nemesis (the Oedipus complex?). The beauty of it all, like the example of P&G, that whether an IIEntity is gaining ground, or vice versa, the consumer would always benefit from a healthy and heated competition.