Competing Like a Strategist [PODCAST S2E9]

Competition is a major force in the field of the strategist. It can render effective strategies ineffective over time. It sometimes makes you run faster to just stay in one place. This episode provides an opportunity to understand what is involved in competing like a strategist.

The Power of Competition

Competition can create havoc in an industry. If you look around the business world today, you will notice that most companies are struggling o deal with their competitors. Dollar Shave Club came out of nowhere and suddenly took over 8% of shave care market share. iPhone came out of nowhere and led to the decline of Blackberry and Symbian. Later, Google suddenly upended Apple’s plans in the smartphone industry.

Role of the Strategist

The role of the strategist involves designing strategies that can lead to a sustained competitive advantage. But competition can arise and suddenly nullify your competitive advantage. So how does a strategist deal with this constant threat? We learn more about this in this episode. We will learn that effectively dealing with competition requires keeping track of competitive activity. It also requires you to make minor changes in your strategies as and when competitive landscape changes.

Key Takeaways

The core takes ways from this week’s episode are as follows:

1. How competition changes your destiny?
2. Why do firms find it hard even to identify its critical competitors
3. Are all competitors bad or are some benign? What are the different outcomes in competitive situations?
4. Can the actions of a firm cannot eh competitive landscape in an industry?
5. How to deal with competition and compete like a strategist?

How to Listen?

This audio is now available as a part of a complete online strategy program called Becoming a Strategist. You can listen to it in the course here