Posts Tagged ‘entrepreneurship’

Richard Martin’s Monday Morning Brilliant Manoeuvres — 20 May 2013

Posted: May 20, 2013 in Brilliant Manoeuvres, Business, Leadership, Leadership Principles, Management, Military Lessons, Monday Morning Brilliant Manoeuvres, Personal Development
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Brilliant Manoeuvre
A key role for every leader is mentoring and coaching his or her subordinates so they develop to their full potential.

Discussion
One of my clients is a long-time entrepreneur. He knows how to sell and promote his business; he’s not afraid to experiment and try new things; he’s approachable and helpful; and he provides inspiration and leadership to everyone in his company. However, I’ve been getting him to develop his own leadership capabilities so he recognizes that he has a major role in developing the leadership and managerial capabilities of his direct reports. For instance, we recently discussed how to work on developing better industry understanding in a relatively new executive. My client brought in this individual because of his extensive management experience in larger companies. However, he needs to develop certain other skills and knowledge so that he can be the most effective leader possible within the organization. It’s not enough to assume that newly hired employees already know everything they need to function within the company. They too must be developed through coaching and mentoring. This can be done with outside coaches, but executives, managers, and supervisors must also play a critical part in this process.

Tip
Do you know every one of your team members by name? Do you know their backgrounds? Where they are from, their goals and aspirations, their particular strengths and limitations? If you can’t answer these most basic questions about your people then you don’t really know them well enough to develop them to their full potential.

Richard Martin is a consultant, speaker, and executive coach. He brings his military and business leadership and management experience to bear for executives and organizations seeking to exploit change, maximize opportunity, and minimize risk.

© 2013 Richard Martin. Reproduction and quotes are permitted with proper attribution.

Black Cats in Dark Rooms

Posted: April 26, 2013 in Brilliant Manoeuvres, Business, Enterprise Robustness, Entrepreneurship, Exploiting Change, Leadership, Leadership Catalyst Newsletter, Leadership Principles, Management, Marketing and Business Development, Military Lessons, Opportunity, Innovation and Adaptation, Personal Development, Risk Management
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In his book, Ignorance: How it drives science, biochemist Stuart Firestein starts by quoting an old proverb, “It is very difficult to find a black cat in a dark room,” and adds “especially when there is no cat.”

Firestein notes that the pursuit of science appears to non-scientists as a very rational and systematic approach to discovery. In actuality, it’s much more like that old proverb than walking down a well-lighted path. The truth is that scientists have to explore many false paths and grope around in the dark room, hoping to find that black cat. But the dark room can be huge, and even endless, and there is no guarantee that there is even a cat in there.

I find that many things about business are very similar. We don’t know ahead of time if our new product ideas will work. Will customers respond the way we anticipate? Will competitors beat us to the punch? Will we be able to deliver on our promises? We can make assumptions about all of this, but that is just what they are, assumptions.

As I pointed out in my book, Brilliant Manoeuvres, assumptions must be validated and tested. Military strategy and tactics provide one model of the application of trial and error to discovery and success. But science also provides a useful model and template. As pointed out by philosopher Karl Popper, science is really a series of conjectures and refutations about the nature of the world and how it works. For instance, in physics, theorists propose new models of the world and experimentalists test them. Theories and hypotheses that have little or no empirical validation are cast aside in favour of those with experimental evidence. This process continues over and over until progress is achieved in understanding reality.

The same process applies in business. Innovation, whether new products and services, new markets, or new internal processes, is nothing but a form of conjecture about what will work in the real world of business. The marketplace is the crucible of experimentation that seeks empirical evidence to demonstrate that the conjecture is correct. Correct business models and innovations are successful to the extent that customers accept them.

Call it a form of un-natural selection. Companies and entrepreneurs put forth ideas based on their understanding of the market and competition, and then they are proved by the test of business success.

To carry this analogy further, businesses must apply the basic principles of innovation and trial and error experimentation.

•    A mechanism to generate new ideas. These can be innovative products and services, or they can also be new ways of viewing the market. For instance, before Henry Ford imagined the Model T, he was driven by the vision of automobiles for every average American family. Prior to the Model T, cars were hand-made toys for the rich. Henry Ford’s innovations explored new manufacturing techniques in order to make his car available to a market that up to then had been essentially ignored.

•    This generation mechanism must be wide-ranging and non-censoring. The perfect model for this is of course brainstorming, where you simply throw out ideas without initial regard for their apparent reasonability or feasibility. In fact, the more ideas appear initially irrational or unfeasible, the better they might be at disrupting the status quo, both internally and externally.

•    Good ideas can (and should) come from all levels and areas of the business. As an example, customer service agents and field service representatives often know more about customer concerns and suggestions for improvements than anyone else in the company. Sales people usually know what the competition is doing. Suppliers and distributors can often provide advance warning of changes in the marketplace and competition. These sources of ideas must be nurtured, encouraged and exploited.

•    Innovations can be external and internal. By this I mean that good ideas don’t just translate directly into new or improved products, services, or markets. It can be someone suggesting a new internal procedure that saves time and money. Or a production manager who finds a potential new supplier at lower cost for equivalent quality. In other words, everything is subject to innovation.

•    Selection should be reality based. Too often ideas are rejected or put out of bounds because ‘that’s not how we do things around here,’ or ‘that’s never worked before,’ or even, ‘because I said so.’ The latter is probably the worst one, but I’ve observed this type of innovation selection by fiat and nothing is more stultifying of growth and continuous improvement. The only truly effective selection mechanism is successful implementation in the external and internal competitive and organizational marketplace.

This is why I advocate trial and error in innovation and change management. No one can predict the future, what will work or not, before it is actually tried. For this reason, we need to find ways to try different ideas and approaches while managing the associated risk. What have you tried lately that is new and innovative?

© Alcera Consulting Inc. 2013. We encourage the sharing of this information and forwarding of this email with attribution. All other rights reserved.

PCs – The Beginning of the End

Posted: April 12, 2013 in Brilliant Manoeuvres, Business, Enterprise Robustness, Exploiting Change, Marketing and Business Development, Military Lessons, Opportunity, Innovation and Adaptation, Strategy
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Data was published yesterday that PC sales are plummeting throughout the world.

It is obviously a result of a move to mobile communications and computing. Most people don’t need a powerful desktop or laptop computer for everyday tasks. Email, messaging, reading news, talking on the phone or through video conferencing, scheduling activities, budgeting, etc., they can all be done on mobile devices. Even the occasional memo or report can be produced on a tablet.

With the rise of ubiquitous voice recognition, artificial intelligence, and cloud based services, there is really a limited market for desktop computing. What we’re seeing is the realization of universal computing machines that can act as a multitude of useful devices. Most people can get by in their personal and professional lives without a dedicated computer.

There are still mainframe computers, but they are now highly specialized or focused on truly high powered applications. The desktop computing model will remain, but it will be increasingly marginalized to specialized applications and uses. Everything else will be mobile, always online, multimedia and multichannel, with embedded specialized AIs and interaction facilitators such as voice dictation, field of vision tracking, and various other forms of man-machine interfaces.

Microsoft, Dell, HP, etc., they all have business models that rely heavily on the desktop computing model. They’re trying to make the transition to cloud computing, mobile interactive online living, and various other manifestations of the universal computing machine model. But, it’s not easy.

This just shows how even the most successful companies can see their business models undermined. The only way to overcome this is to shape the future yourself. To take the initiative and to try to create the new business models, rather than just react to them. Microsoft, for instance, has been singularly unsuccessful at adapting to, and shaping, new business models. The company was highly successful at riding the wave of democratization and decentralization of computing, and even created it to a large extent by offering cheap and reasonably effective and usable operating systems and productivity software. But then it just stopped really innovating.

There are only a handful of companies that have operated in highly changing competitive markets that have been able to evolve and adapt, and even shape the changes around them. IBM is one, HP in its previous incarnations was another. Who will be able to adapt to, and shape the future business environments? Who will have the offensive mindset to seize and maintain the initiative? I’ve written about this extensively in my book, Brilliant Manoeuvres: How to Use Military Wisdom to Win Business Battles.

© 2013 Richard Martin. Reproduction and quotes permitted with full and proper attribution.

 

The Power of Mission Analysis

Posted: April 5, 2013 in Brilliant Manoeuvres, Business, Exploiting Change, Leadership, Leadership Catalyst Newsletter, Leadership Principles, Management, Military Lessons, Personal Development, Strategy
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The more I work to bring military wisdom to businesses and executives, the more I see the power of mission analysis in action. In fact, I find this so important, that this month’s newsletter is adapted from my book, Brilliant Manoeuvres: How to Use Military Wisdom to Win Business Battles. I want to offer this powerful tool of motivation and alignment so as many people as possible can benefit.

In standard military terms, a mission is a clear, concise statement of the task of the unit and its purpose. The interesting thing though is that the mission doesn’t come directly from the superior commander’s orders, but rather as the result of a process of analysis by the subordinate commander. The easiest way to apply mission analysis in business is to answer the following questions.

  1. What are the vision, mission, and intent of the whole organization?
  2. What are my immediate superior’s vision, mission, intent, and concept of operations for our part of the organization?
  3. What explicit tasks, roles, and functions within the greater concept of operations has my immediate superior given me?
  4. Are there implied tasks that are required to support these assigned tasks?
  5. What are the limitations on my freedom of action? In other words, are there constraints (musts) and restraints (must not’s) I must follow?
  6. What can I observe, infer, and assume from the foregoing?
  7. What is the most concise statement of my mission?
  8. How has the situation evolved since the last time I answered these questions? Has it changed, or is it similar to the previous round of analysis?

From these questions, anybody can formulate a mission that fits into the bigger picture of the organization they are part of. In other words, you can’t formulate your mission statement and make your own plan of action, statement of intent and end state, without first determining how you fit into the puzzle.

To illustrate the application of mission analysis to business, let’s imagine that you are a sales manager with a small manufacturer of custom packaging for cosmetics and generic pharmaceuticals. The packaging is similar for both types of products as are the suppliers, production, and warehousing. The sales and distribution channels are completely different as are the nature of the buyers, marketing, merchandising, and promotion. The CEO, also the company’s majority shareholder, wants to double the company’s size within four years, expanding the customer base to all of North America from its current concentration in eastern Canada and New England. The vision is to become a leading producer of quality packaging for the entire pharmaceuticals and cosmetics industries in all of North America. The new strategy entails an expansion from generic pharmaceuticals manufacturers to all pharmaceuticals companies, particularly those providing over-the-counter drugs because it’s felt that the packaging is similar to that of cosmetics. There are also many similarities in distribution and merchandising. The company’s mission, therefore, is to provide integrated, quality packaging solutions at reasonable cost for the pharmaceuticals and cosmetics manufacturers in all of North America. It will do this by providing a complete packaging solution. All the pharmaceutical or cosmetic manufacturer need do is ship the product to the company’s facilities and it will do the rest, including sourcing inputs, designing the packaging and instructions, doing the packing and warehousing, shipping to distributors, etc. In other words, they are aiming to provide an end-to-end solution for manufacturers of generic pharmaceuticals and cosmetics.

The senior team has developed a strategy based on three major business thrusts: grow the pharmaceuticals business; grow the cosmetics business; grow the capabilities to provide end-to-end packaging solutions to these customer groups. The company has traditionally had only one sales team, but with the new strategy, the CEO decided to split the company into three groups to focus on each thrust. There is therefore a VP for each of Pharmaceuticals, Cosmetics, and Operations, and each has been given wide freedom of action to execute the strategy within his or her area. You are now part of the pharmaceuticals group, responsible for developing the over-the-counter drug segment. VP Pharmaceuticals’ intent and concept are shown in the table below, as is your mission analysis.

1.    CEO’s vision and intent
Vision: Become a leading producer of high quality packaging for pharmaceuticals and cosmetics manufacturers in all of North America
Objective: Double size within four years and expand customer base to all of North America from current concentration in Eastern Canada and New England.
Mission: Provide integrated high quality packaging solutions at reasonable cost for both markets.
Concept: Provide an end-to-end solution for manufacturers of pharmaceuticals and cosmetics. Separate sales groups with one production and operations group servicing sales in both markets. Use mass customization approach for tailored customer solutions while optimizing efficiencies and economies of scale.

2.    VP Pharma’s intent and concept of operations
Vision: Preferred supplier of integrated packaging solutions for all major pharma manufacturers in North America wanting high quality packaging.
Objectives: Maintain generic pharma clients; reach all OTC drugs manufacturers as customers within 2 years; reach all other pharma manufacturers within 4 years.
Mission/Intent: Provide integrated packaging solutions so the pharma manufacturers can focus on developing and marketing their products, and not worry about packaging logistics.
Concept: Three sales teams focusing on three distinct client groups; generic sales team to expand to North America; create OTC sales team and build on existing client relationships in current clients to offer OTC packaging solutions, then extend to other companies; expand from OTC clients into other areas of pharma manufacturers and build sales team for proprietary pharma manufacturers as required.

3.    Assigned tasks
Develop the OTC manufacturers clientele.

4.    Implied tasks
Build a sales team; leverage existing relationships in generic pharma companies that also have OTC products; lay the groundwork to extend the same model to pharma companies that focus on proprietary drugs.

5.    Limitations
Must reach all OTC manufacturers within 2 years and all other pharma companies with OTC products within 4 years. Can go faster as opportunities arise.

6.    Observations, inferences, and assumptions
I infer from the foregoing analysis that the OTC sales effort is the critical one for the company, because it provides the bridge from existing relationships in current generic drug manufacturers to all other pharma companies. While OTC clients will be a major revenue source in and of themselves, the companies with proprietary pharmaceuticals form the bulk of the sector and that is where our company’s major future growth will come from. I therefore assume that the OTC sales team will be a priority for growth and resourcing over the next 2 years.

7.    Mission statement
Our mission is to expand existing client relationships in generic pharma to OTC drugs with a view to transferring this expertise to the proprietary pharmaceuticals manufacturers, first through OTC products, and then in support of all their other pharmaceutical products.

8.    Has the situation changed?
As the situation evolves in the next few years, you sit down with your team on a regular basis, or as needed, and redo this mission analysis to confirm that you’re still on the right track.

This notional illustration of mission analysis leads to a few critical observations. The first is that mission analysis is a dynamic process. Whether it is at the corporate, divisional, or team levels, the situation must be constantly assessed to determine whether the mission and goals are still relevant and, more importantly, still within the bounds of the superior manager’s intent and concept of operations. The second point is that the mission statement for any particular executive and sub-organization tends to flow of necessity from the analysis. Once the first five steps of the process have been done, the mission statement tends to be obvious. The final and most important point is that mission analysis is the glue that holds the whole framework of nested hierarchical planning together. Mission analysis enables managers and employees at all levels of the organization, no matter what their role or tasks, to fit into the big picture and know their mission. This empowers everyone to exercise initiative to achieve the vision and mission of the organization.

© Alcera Consulting Inc. 2013. We encourage the sharing of this information and forwarding of this email with attribution. All other rights reserved.

Profile of Richard Martin in Globe and Mail of 25 March 2013

Posted: March 25, 2013 in Announcements, Book Reviews, Brilliant Manoeuvres, Business, Exploiting Change, Leadership, Leadership Principles, Management, Marketing and Business Development, Military Lessons, Opportunity, Innovation and Adaptation
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http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/careers/management/a-military-approach-to-business/article10197913/

Richard Martin’s Monday Morning Brilliant Manoeuvres – 4 March 2013

Posted: March 4, 2013 in Brilliant Manoeuvres, Business, Exploiting Change, Marketing and Business Development, Military Lessons, Monday Morning Brilliant Manoeuvres, Opportunity, Innovation and Adaptation, Personal Development, Strategy
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Brilliant Manoeuvre
Let your competitors focus on their existing customers and products. That creates opportunities for you to manoeuvre around them.

Example
In the 1950s, Fairchild Semiconductor left the vacuum tube manufacturers to focus on their existing customer applications such as TVs and radios and went after the more demanding and much more lucrative defense and space applications markets with their solid state transistors and integrated circuits. Canadair (and then Bombardier Aerospace) didn’t try to build major jetliners but instead went into businness jets, water bombers, and small regional jetliners. Microsoft didn’t try to go directly up againt the IBMs and didn’t get into hardware, but instead offered low cost, reasonably effective operating systems and applications to individual users and small businesses. Google initially just offered search based ads to advertisers, leaving mass media companies to continue focusing on large accounts. Apple left the corporate and institutional markets to Research in Motion when it introduced the iPhone and went after the consumer market.

Tip
Use your competitors strengths against them.

Richard Martin is a consultant, speaker, and executive coach. He brings his military and business leadership and management experience to bear for executives and organizations seeking to exploit change, maximize opportunity, and minimize risk.

© 2013 Richard Martin. Reproduction and quotes are permitted with proper attribution.

Creating and Sustaining the Offensive Mindset

Posted: March 2, 2013 in Brilliant Manoeuvres, Business, Enterprise Robustness, Entrepreneurship, Leadership Catalyst Newsletter, Leadership Principles, Management, Military Lessons, Opportunity, Innovation and Adaptation, Personal Development, Strategy
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Offensive action is applicable in all spheres of business: strategy, organizational change, continuous process improvement, sales and marketing, recruiting, public relations, crisis management, risk management, leadership development, succession, etc.

A common understanding of offense is that it’s all about attacking and taking an aggressive stance. This is true, but it’s much more than that. It’s a mindset that is centered on seizing and maintaining the initiative. If you’ve lost the initiative, or have given it up intentionally or unintentionally, whether you like it or not, you’re in a defensive posture. You must work to regain the initiative and get back on the offensive.

I’ve discussed this in great detail in my book, Brilliant Manoeuvres: How to Use Military Wisdom to Win Business Battles. Last month we looked at how you can assess your own offensive posture and that of your competitors. This month, I’d like to look at how you can build an offensive mindset within your team or organization.

Common Understanding. Everyone in the company must understand its overall vision, mission, and objectives, and must know where and how they fit into the strategy and plan. They also need to know the vital role they play in achieving or supporting that mission. With this, they are in a position to apply their own initiative and reasoning to resolve the inevitable problems and dilemmas that arise as a result of friction, uncertainty, error, and competitors’ actions. It is critical that every level in the company develops and implements its own mission, vision, objectives and plans and implement them with a view to achieving the intent of the higher level of which they form a part. The technique to achieve this is known as ‘mission analysis,’ and the result is ‘mission command,’ the approach that empowers individuals to take initiative in the service of the organization’s ultimate strategy.

Mission Command. In the military, empowerment and initiative are known as ‘mission command.’ In a nutshell, mission command is about telling people WHAT to achieve and letting them figure out HOW to achieve it in the most effective and efficient manner possible. Even better is when the whole team participates in developing the WHAT part. If managers and employees know something to be true or right, and it fits within the stated objectives and strategy, they should be encouraged to use their initiative to exploit the opportunity, defend against the threat, or correct the mistake. This empowers individuals throughout the company to pursue ideas using their creativity and teamwork without having to get permission all the time. They can also adjust to a changing competitive situation without having to withdraw, start the planning process over, and launch a new attack. This speeds up decision-making and makes use of the brains and motivation of everyone involved to get to the objective.

Prudent Risk-taking. Acceptance of risk is the corollary of initiative and empowerment. You can’t expect people to make quick decisions and act upon them with speed and agility if they fear reprisals or punishment when the inevitable mistakes are made or when problems of execution occur. In a culture where risk is recognized and accepted, decisions will tend to be quicker and more effective than in an organization where everyone is covering their behind.

Build on Strength. We all tend to focus on our weaknesses and devote way too many resources in trying to correct them. This is a mistake, because lasting success only comes from identifying and reinforcing strengths. Strategically, this requires the company leadership to identify its centre of gravity. This is its unique source of differentiation and competitive power. There are generic centres of gravity (also known as driving forces), such as product-focus, market-focus, distribution, and method of sales, which I’ve written about before. For example, Apple is relentless about its product focus. Everything is about the excellence and uniqueness of the product experience. On the other hand, Amazon is obsessive about distribution. This is the company’s unique source of strength and competitiveness. Operationally, companies must also identify their unique strengths and develop them into powerful competitive advantages. Finally, at the tactical and personal levels, every team, every leader, and every employee must know what they do best and seek to get better and better at it over time. Constant improvement is greatly aided by a disciplined approach to lessons learned and after-action review, strong morale, and transformational leadership.

© 2013 Richard Martin. Reproduction and quotes permitted with full and proper attribution.

Richard Martin’s Monday Morning Brilliant Manoeuvres – 25 February 2013

Posted: February 25, 2013 in Brilliant Manoeuvres, Business, Entrepreneurship, Exploiting Change, Marketing and Business Development, Military Lessons, Monday Morning Brilliant Manoeuvres, Opportunity, Innovation and Adaptation, Strategy
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Brilliant Manoeuvre
Use technology to move faster and make decisions faster than competitors.

Example
Technology has always been a key factor in warfare. The side that is better able to exploit a new technology and do so faster and in greater numbers than potential or actual enemies will tend to prevail. The same applies in business. Technology is evolving at an accelerating rate. Visionary inventor and entrepreneur Ray Kurzweil calls this phenomenon the Law of Accelerating Returns. As an example, the speed and quality of genome sequencing basically doubles every year while the cost continues to drop rapidly. IBM’s Watson supercomputer, which last year won Jeopardy by beating the two best ever human competitors (with a score that surpassed their combined scores), is now being turned by IBM to the development of AI-based medical diagnosis. It is conceivable that within a few years we will have access to our own medical records and biometric information in a continual manner as well as near instant health monitoring and diagnosis. How will this change medical and healthcare practice? What does this mean for doctors, nurses, hospitals, pharmacies, pharma companies, and health and life insurance companies? If I were in these fields, I would be developing scenarios and finding ways to be at the forefront of technology and innovation so I could be in a better position to preempt competitors and occupy the rich economic terrain that will open up. I would be actively looking at the impact of technologies in all fields, even outside of my own, because new threats may arise or, more important, new opportunities WILL arise. I would want to be on the winning side by setting the conditions and shaping the battlefield to my advantage.

Tip
Be on the lookout for evolving technologies in all spheres of endeavour and seek ways to incorporate them into your business or to leverage them for competitive and strategic advantage.

Richard Martin is a consultant, speaker, and executive coach. He brings his military and business leadership and management experience to bear for executives and organizations seeking to exploit change, maximize opportunity, and minimize risk.

© 2013 Richard Martin. Reproduction and quotes are permitted with proper attribution.

Richard Martin’s Monday Morning Brilliant Manoeuvres – 11 February 2013

Posted: February 11, 2013 in Brilliant Manoeuvres, Business, Entrepreneurship, Exploiting Change, Management, Marketing and Business Development, Military Lessons, Monday Morning Brilliant Manoeuvres, Opportunity, Innovation and Adaptation, Personal Development, Strategy, Video
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Brilliant Manoeuvre
The first and most important principle of war, and the only sure road to victory, is offense. Defense should only be used as a temporary measure while doing everything possible to (re)gain the initiative.

Examples
Too many companies (and even entire business sectors) have lost their relevance by assuming that their existing defensive posture would protect them from competition. Newspapers have been rendered almost irrelevant by web based media. The music industry was completely bypassed, first by Napster and other illegal copying methods, and then legally by iTunes. Television networks are struggling against the same reality, trying desperately to protect their control over programming, while teenagers barely watch TV anymore, preferring to watch their favourite shows on the web. Research in Motion (now Blackberry) thought its position in secure mobile communications made it invulnerable. When the iPhone came out, one of RIM’s co-CEOs pronounced it insignificant (or words to that effect). On the other hand, companies such as IBM, Bombardier, and Disney have continually reinvented themselves, or redefined their purpose in order to seek out and/or create new market positions. This keeps them ahead of competitors, and in some cases makes the competitors irrelevant.

Tip
Offensive business strategy succeeds best when companies make small, probing advances, experimenting with new products, services, processes, and business models. Once they see a successful incursion, they pour resources ‘into the breach’ in the hope of turning it into a breakthrough.

Richard Martin is a consultant, speaker, and executive coach. He brings his military and business leadership and management experience to bear for executives and organizations seeking to exploit change, maximize opportunity, and minimize risk.

© 2013 Richard Martin. Reproduction and quotes are permitted with proper attribution.

Assess Your Offensive Posture

Posted: February 1, 2013 in Brilliant Manoeuvres, Business, Enterprise Robustness, Entrepreneurship, Exploiting Change, Management, Marketing and Business Development, Military Lessons, Never Fight Fair, Opportunity, Innovation and Adaptation, Personal Development, Strategy
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As I’ve pointed out in my book, Brilliant Manoeuvres: How to Use Military Wisdom to Win Business Battles, “To win in war and business requires seizing and maintaining the initiative; going on the defensive only buys time to withdraw, reorient or reconstitute one’s forces.”

In other words, successful business strategy is fundamentally about finding ways to go and stay on the offensive. The principles of offensive action are as follows: seize and maintain the initiative; manoeuvre for advantage; use the indirect approach; and probe and follow the path of least resistance.

I go into these principles in great detail in Brilliant Manoeuvres, but I’ve found that it is also necessary to understand one’s posture before trying to make any changes. This is why I’m currently developing a tool to assess offensive posture. Email if you would like to receive a copy of this document, which also includes examples of how it can be applied in competitive analyses.

As already mentioned, offensive posture is fundamentally about seizing and maintaining the initiative. This plays out in five different dimensions. When you combine all five, you get a highly revealing picture of your own competitive posture and that of key competitors, and that enables you to generate insights so you can ‘seize and maintain the initiative.’ For each of these dimensions, you can be the leader (or one of the leaders), ahead of the pack, in the middle of the pack, a follower, or far behind (or even dead last). Obviously, the terrain you want to occupy is leadership, or at least ahead of the main pack. Let’s look at these dimensions in greater detail.

Customers. If you’re the leader, you get to pick and choose your customers. This confers great flexibility as you can select product-market segments that are the most profitable, with the greatest growth potential, and also that contribute the most to a strong brand. Conversely, if you’re far behind the pack, you basically have to take what you can get in terms of customers. This usually forces you into a commoditized position, where you absolutely have no choice but to compete with ‘me too’ products at the lowest possible prices.

Price Flexibility. The key word here is ‘flexibility.’ It’s not necessarily that you always command the highest prices for your products and services, but rather that they be appropriate to your product-market mix and branding. If you’re the leader with all the initiative and freedom of action, you get to set your price. This could be the highest price possible, especially if you’re introducing new products and services aimed at early adopters. But it could also be at lower price points once you’ve created or penetrated a new market. Conversely, followers have little choice in setting prices. They basically have to follow what the market determines, and are often selling to the bulk commodity market and late adopters. Followers have no choice but to be imitators and low-cost producers.

Product Leadership. This factor follows naturally from the previous two. If you’re in a leadership position or ahead of the pack, you can be more innovative in creating differentiated products and services. You can also take more calculated and prudent risks. This is because you have more resources, such as capital and time, to experiment with initiatives. This confers greater freedom of action to manoeuvre around competitors but also to stay ahead of the pack. Conversely, followers are forced into commodification of their products and services, and by extension these have to be lower priced. This can be a conscious choice by a company, but it is also riskier because the leaders clearly have the initiative and freedom of action.

Brand Strength. Leaders tend to have strong brands that are recognized and admired. One of the principal benefits of brand strength is customer loyalty, even in the face of difficulties. Look at how customers have forgiven Apple for its mistakes over the years. At the other end of the spectrum, followers are non-entities in customers’ minds. They are generic and are often forced to produce generic products and services under license for stronger brands. This can be a conscious strategy, but once again it has considerably more risks, as the company has little room for error.

Surprise/Speed. This is perhaps one of the most unrecognized benefits of an offensive posture. When you have the initiative, you can pick and choose the time and place to act, how, when, and to whom you offer new products and services. Companies in the lead are often a lot quicker to respond to competitive challenges and changes in customer tastes. This confers surprise and magnifies the positive effects of the four other dimensions. On the other hand, followers are constantly being surprised or overtaken by competitors. A sure sign of a follower position on this dimension is when a company is constantly in crisis mode. Senior management has that ‘deer in the headlights’ look that comes from being surprised and unable to react in a timely and effective manner.

These five dimensions can be adapted to any situation beyond the competitive sphere, for instance in sales and marketing, organizational change initiatives, leadership, etc. A good start is to assess your offensive posture relative to your main competitors. Like I said above, feel free to contact me if you would like a graphical tool for doing so, or just to discuss your needs in this regard.

© Alcera Consulting Inc. 2013. We encourage the sharing of this information and forwarding of this email with attribution. All other rights reserved.

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