I have always been fascinated with Sun Tzu and his tome The Art of War. Consequently, I have taken many of his lessons and applied them to business situations. While Sun Tzu is truly brilliant when it comes to waging a war, upon much deeper reflection, you might be in the wrong business if you look at your business as being at war against your competitors.
First off in the war, battles or skirmishes are fought with neighbor states and they exact a toll on both parties. Over time, as resources are expended, one side reaches a point where its losses are just too great to continue and it capitulates. In the end both, sides are depleted; one party is just more so than the other. Moreover, the citizens of a country are ignored while the government fights the war since all efforts are directed toward defeating the enemy. While most wars are fought to capture land or natural resources, it is assumed that these resources are a finite supply – to get more of it, you have to take it from another.
However, there was a period in world history when ships became large enough and seaworthy enough to sail the world’s oceans. The subsequent exploration opened new lands and natural resources without the need to battle one’s neighbor to get it. Therefore, allocating resources toward exploration rather than conquest seemed like a much better allocation of resources than war.
Lesson #1 – If you are expending your precious resources by competing with your rivals, such as trying to steal their customers, you are not spending your valuable resources on your current customers. If you focus on fighting your competition rather than serving your customer, your profits will soon compete away.
Lesson #2 – It is far better to use your resources to find new uncontested markets or to create a monopoly where you can actually capture value. Rather than trying to expend that energy in fighting rivals in the hope that your resources will be depleted less than the competition’s, use your resources to explore untapped reserves.
However, if war is the only option, it must be quick and decisive like Germany’s blitzkrieg. As Sun Tzu said,
“There is no instance of a nation benefiting from prolonged warfare.”
Are you focused on developing a winning strategy as you wage war with your competitors over the same customers or are you looking for new lands to explore and procure new customers without a battle?
