Don't Have a Competitor? Invent One.
George Danner
President, Business Laboratory LLC, Author - The Executive's How-To Guide to Automation
Day to day life inside a corporation can be insular.? The energy and focus are on the latest operational challenge
We have seen the lack of this extrospection many, many times.? Pick up any newspaper and you will see headlines about how this company or that “never saw it coming” from a competitor that emerged from a completely different angle to swoop in and steal the market from them while they watched helplessly from the sidelines.??
What I am talking about here is a sandbox simulation exercise on-paper.? Here’s how it works: invite your suppliers and partners or even your most closely aligned customers to sit down and describe a competitor to the home organization.? Perhaps it's a bit smaller and more nimble?? Perhaps it has a wider distribution network?? A different product line?? Perhaps its supply chains
This is a fun, creative exercise that allows people from across your ecosystem to express the principles of the business and then codify those concepts on paper.? Take turns drawing and critiquing the Value Chain
After the exercise is complete and you have all of the ingredients of the competition nicely organized on paper, hold that competitor up (maybe literally?) against your own company and then ask yourself: how would you compete against such a company?
This should in turn spawn numerous conversations and debates around the company—the right kinds of debates that require formal, well-reasoned answers.? The more discomfort and disagreement across the company the better—that is the best metric to show that the exercise is working.? Engineering intelligent counterdefenses make you a better, stronger, more robust company no matter what the market throws at you.
I have even seen a few firms create digital twins of their hypothetical competitors so that they could model moves and countermoves using the science of Game Theory
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Customers genuinely appreciate that you are involving them and doing your homework to ensure that you are the best solution to their needs, not just in words but in actual, data-driven deeds.? The last thing any customer wants is a fat-and-happy supplier that never bothers to evolve.
Military units and sports teams do this all the time—sometimes under the language of red/blue teams.? They invent synthetic offenses that they seek to counter.? They create their own surprises as a means to test their readiness for the upcoming competition.? I have seen this work firsthand to rejuvenate companies out of their complacent, monotonous safe houses.
Competing against a formidable albeit imaginary enemy is just the kind of creative tension that most companies need.
Good luck… you will need it.
CEO & Founder, Success Advisory Group
2 年Great challenge George for thinking in new ways!! I like your comment about headlines of this company or that company which "never saw it coming" from a competitor with a disruptive threat. Reminds me of this quote from Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises - "How did you go bankrupt? 'Two ways - gradually and then suddenly.' "