Posts Tagged ‘competitors’

Use guerrilla strategy and tactics if you’re in a position of strategic weakness

Posted: February 3, 2014 in Powerful Ideas
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Guerrilla strategy is very misunderstood, sometimes even by military historians and strategists. In the simplest terms, guerrilla strategy is a combination of small-scale offensive tactics with a defensive strategy at the highest levels. Despite what many people think, guerrilla warfare is a strategy of weakness. I think people focus on the small-scale offensive manoeuvres and fail to see the big picture. So, for instance, when the Taliban adopted a guerrilla strategy in Afghanistan after their downfall, it was because they realized that they couldn’t win by large-scale offensive strategy, nor could they win by small-scale defensive tactics. When you’re very weak, not only can you NOT go on the offensive, but you also can’t even hold ground effectively, or prevent the enemy from holding it. So what do you do? You revert to what are called hit and run tactics. These include raids, ambushes, and a lot of propaganda to brag about the results of your actions out of all proportion to their actual effectiveness.

So how does this get translated to business practice? Here are a few ways, but I invite you to think about the ways you can use guerrilla strategy if you are in a position of weakness against a very strong opponent.

  • Apply subtle offensive tactics: infiltration; encroachment; reversal; undermining; diversion; deception and disruption; attrition through hit-and-run; psychological warfare; divide & attack piecemeal
  • Poison the well: raise doubts about your opponent or competitor
  • Claim you’re on the defensive but actually take small offensive actions
  • Temporary alliances with small competitors or partners
  • Strategic alliances with larger competitors or partners

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.

© 2014 Richard Martin. Reproduction and quotes are permitted with proper attribution.

Beyond Traditional Conflict Management

Posted: October 1, 2013 in Powerful Ideas
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We’ve seen a number of examples lately of how negotiations and conflict resolution depend crucially on a single key factor: The parties to the negotiation or resolution must be willing to compromise on something substantive. If one side doesn’t want to be flexible, what you really have is just a strategic game where one side’s gain is the other side’s loss. On the other hand, there has to be a bottom line on both sides. If one of the parties is willing to give up everything to avoid a potential conflict or fight, then the side that has a higher bottom line will smell blood and will try to go for the jugular.

The crisis that has been brewing as the US government approaches a shutdown of non-essential operations on October 1st shows that flexibility and compromise are required in negotiation in order to resolve conflicts. Neither the president nor the Republicans in Congress are willing to give up anything substantive. This means there are no real negotiations and therefore no realistic solutions to the budgetary standoff. I believe that parties to a conflict can always find common ground and a solution, if they are willing to put water in their wine.

The second instance is illustrated by what we’ve witnessed since late August as US president Barack Obama “negotiated” his way out of a situation that he didn’t really want to be in in the first place. I’m convinced he had no intent of launching any kind of military action against Syria for its use of poison gas against civilians in a Damascus suburb in late August. Russia and the Assad regime could sense this, so they offered a way out to Obama, which would require little in the way of real concessions by Syria. By guaranteeing Syria’s purported chemical disarmament, Russia increases its influence in the Middle East, especially in the crucial Iran-Syria axis. Assad stays in power and doesn’t have to endure a strike by US forces. Meanwhile, the US, and especially the Obama Administration, lose face in the region. This will probably undermine any future attempts by the US to threaten the use of force to achieve its aims. Some may see this as salutary, but in the long run it may degrade the US’s credibility and freedom of action. These are critical in the game of Great Power relations.

Two business partners I know have been in an impasse for years as they struggle to find a way to get out of their partnership. One partner is offering a very low price for the other’s share of the business while the other asks for a very high price. There has been little movement for at least two years as they stare each other down. They also haven’t accepted a common negotiating framework or forced the issue through legal or other strong-arm tactics, so the situation has stagnated. It is like two enemies watching each other across a fortified border, afraid to make a move in case the other side sees it as a sign of weakness. The reality is that this unresolved conflict is like a festering wound, infecting the rest of the organs that are still healthy.

The following diagram shows that there are a number of attitudes we can adopt when faced with the prospect of conflict and negotiating to resolve it.

Conflict Resolution English.001

In the first instance, we can take a coercive attitude, where one of the parties is unwilling to budge on anything substantive and forces the other into a losing position. Call this “winner takes all”; it reflects an egotistical perspective and the goal is the personal satisfaction of only one of the sides.

A little more flexible is the competitive attitude, where the parties are trying to gain something at each other’s expense, but they recognize the need to create a transaction. In other words, I win something that you lose, but you gain something that I lose. It stems from a perspective of exclusivity, where my gain must entail your loss, and vice versa, and it is still reflective of a need to satisfy personal goals.

The next level of resolution can be called the integrative attitude. In such a situation, both parties recognize the need to create a “win-win” solution. The idea is that we go beyond our parochial objectives to craft a common set of goals. We will cooperate in achieving these and it reflects a perspective of mutualism.

The final and highest form of conflict resolution is what I call collaborative. With this attitude, parties to a conflict or negotiation try to see beyond their own objectives and focus on the wider purposes of their endeavour. They seek the good of society or of others beyond their immediate objectives as parties to the conflict. This reflects a universal perspective, where the focus is on benefiting “all of us” now and into the future, and not just we who are involved in the negotiation at the present time. The collaborative attitude to negotiation attempts to see all the consequences of the resolution, not just now and for us, but in the foreseeable future and for everyone and anyone who may be affected directly or indirectly by our decisions.

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.

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

Concentrate your forces for the main effort

Posted: September 30, 2013 in Powerful Ideas
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There’s a fine balance to strike between trying new things, staying on top of evolving products, markets, and technology, while concentrating forces for the main effort. That main effort should always be based on the company’s core strength, the centre of gravity that gives it balance and stability. The company’s other activities should be developed to protect the centre of gravity so resources can be concentrated on the latter and also to explore the margins of the business, so that senior leaders can anticipate strategic changes, new technologies, and new entrants. If you dissipate your forces, there will be insufficient resources for the main push when its needed. This is what happened to Blackberry. The company’s leadership failed to assess and leverage its centre of gravity in secure enterprise and institutional communications and messaging. The company that came up with a secure communications system that had the confidence of the US Department of Defense was unable to build on that critical strength. Instead, RIM sat on its enterprise advantage in security and reliability and tried to compete in the consumer market against Apple and the numerous Android devices. RIM dissipated its limited resources on fighting against Apple and Android devices in the consumer market, when it should have been concentrating on strengthening its efforts in the enterprise and institutional sectors.

Food for Thought
You have to decide on what can’t, or shouldn’t, be done. This will free up resources to focus the main effort on leveraging the business’s centre of gravity, with secondary and supporting roles to explore at the margins, scout out new opportunities and threats, and protect the company’s main advantages.

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.

“The moral is to the physical as three is to one.” Napoleon

Posted: September 23, 2013 in Powerful Ideas
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Apple just launched it’s iPhone 5S and 5C. If ever we needed an example of how moral — i.e., psychological — factors can outweigh physical, material factors in business, then this is it. I am a big fan of Apple products. I have an iPhone, Macbook Pro, and iPad. However, even as a fan I have to admit that I was surprised by the effect that the iPhone 5S has had, with long lineups to get one. The high-end models appear to be outselling the low-end models by a large margin. This just goes to show that psychologically, Apple and its products are miles ahead of competing products. Even though the latter are roughly speaking equivalent in functionality and appearance, consumers still have an emotional attachment to Apple’s products. The media speculation ahead of the launch of the two new iPhones and the public enthusiasm for them demonstrate conclusively that curiosity and emotion drive people to commit to a company’s products and services beyond just the technical and functional characteristics. As with military strategy and tactics, psychological factors are a huge force multiplier.

Food for Thought
Have you created an emotional attachment with your customers, employees, suppliers, distributors, and managers?

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

Richard Martin’s Brilliant Manoeuvres Podcast — 20 September 2013

Posted: September 20, 2013 in Podcasts & Audio
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Here is an extract from my first teleconference in my 2013-14 Teleconference Series on How to Use Military Wisdom to Win Business Battles. You get more info here and register for all ten teleconferences. The cost is only $150.00 for all ten. That will amount to 9-10 hours of audio. I provide a MP3 download within 48 hours of the call so you can listen as many times as you want at your leisure.

Listen to a sample extract:

The full teleconference last approximately 55 minutes and is available for purchase at $20.00 Cdn. Just contact me at info@alcera.ca.

It’s not too late to register for all 10 teleconferences. The teleconferences will start at noon eastern on the 3rd Friday of the next ten months, and run until June 2014. Each of the calls covers a different aspect of how to apply military wisdom to win your business battles, and is based on a chapter in my book, Brilliant Manoeuvres : How to Use Military Wisdom to Win Business Battles. I’m adding new material and content so these aren’t just a repeat of the book.

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

Know what kind of struggle your engaged in

Posted: September 16, 2013 in Geopolitics
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The great 19th century military theorist Clausewitz wrote that — I’m paraphrasing here — the first and most important task of a leader is to understand the type of conflict or struggle he is engaged in. Poker players apparently have a more mundane way of putting things. If you’re the only one at the table who’s wondering who the patsy is, then you’re it.

In the last week we’ve seen just how amateurish the Obama administration is when it comes to the Great Game of great power relations, war, and diplomacy. The Keystone Cops routine that is the Obama policy on Syria’s use of chemical weapons would be funny were the consequences and implications not so deadly and ominous. President Putin of Russia is not so dilettantish in his approach to Syria. He sees the civil war there as a struggle to maintain and reinforce his influence with thugish regimes all around the world. It is also a confirmation within Russia, if any was needed, of his status as a classic strongman. The situation is even starker for Assad, for whom this war is not just a political struggle, but a fight to the death. Given what has happened to other dictators after their downfall throughout the world (Mubarak, Khaddafi, Saddam), it’s not surprising that he sees things in this light. The US is playing with its credibility and standing on the world stage and its ability to influence the policies and alignments of other nations. Obama is also gambling with the prerogatives of the office of president as commander-in-chief. All because he apparently doesn’t have the stomach for the fight — which came with the job — or because he doesn’t realize how significant the current crisis is.

We can see this all the time in organizations and business. A market leading company sees a new product as a minor irritant or insignificant (as one of RIM’s co-CEOs Mike Laziridis said on seeing the first iPhone) whereas the attacker sees it as a matter of life and death. An executive is playing nice, but there are other people in the company who are gunning for his position.

Food for Thought
Are you in a fight? Do you know its nature? Do you competitors or opponents view it in the same light? Are you willing to pay the price to win or to “fall on your sword”?

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

Infiltration is a potent tactic on the battlefield and in business

Posted: August 26, 2013 in Powerful Ideas
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One of the most effective infantry tactics is infiltration. For instance, during the First World War, the Germans and the Western allies learned the importance of sending in small groups of fighters to scout out enemy positions ahead of a battle, or simply to conduct short, sharp raids. Infiltration could be deadly in both material and psychological terms, as it caused a steady drip drip of casualties while also undermining the morale of those being infiltrated. This continued throughout the Second World War, Korea, Vietnam, and Afghanistan.

Companies often fail to appreciate the indidious undermining of their once-solid positions by a steady stream of competitors and their slightly “improved” or differentiated products. Competition usually comes as infiltration, slowly but inexorably working its way into the market. One day, the leadership of a once-dominant company wakes up to find itself surrounded by competitive offerings and it all happened so slowly that they can’t pinpoint the specific time it happened. But they are nonetheless surrounded and in danger. This is what has happened to Blackberry, Microsoft, and others.

Food for Thought
Are you susceptible to infiltration by competitors and non-business stakeholders who can undermine your strong positions? Can you use infiltration against your competitors?

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.

Freedom of Action Is Essential to Seizing and Maintaining the Initiative

Posted: August 12, 2013 in Geopolitics
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The resistance in the US and Canada to the construction of the Keystone XL pipeline by Transcanada Pipelines has hemmed in that company’s ability to bring new oil to refineries on the US Gulf coast. It has also left Transcanada vulnerable to political whim and environmental protests. I’m not necessarily saying that the latter are bad things, but they do restrict freedom of action. Transcanada’s decision to start the process to build the Energy East Pipeline to ship Alberta and Saskatchewan oil to eastern Canada and eventually overseas markets provides additional options and freedom of action to sell western Canadian oil.

With freedom of action, you can select the time and place to attack and keep your competitors off guard. It is also an opportunity to diversify options which create dilemmas for competitors and additional ways around existing or potential obstacles to growth.

Are your decisions today likely to hem you in in the short, medium, or long term? What can you do to innovate now while maintaining or safeguarding future freedom of action?

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 permitted with full and proper attribution.

Re-Creation and Reinvention

Posted: August 6, 2013 in Powerful Ideas
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The economist Joseph Schumpeter is famous for saying that capitalism is a process of creative destruction. Actually I think the concept goes back to Karl Marx. The point is essentially that in a free society, human ingenuity will lead to new products, services, and ideas. Many, if not most, of these novelties will die, but many won’t, and eventually they overtake the products, services, and ideas of existing companies and organizations.

Just last week, Publicis and Omnicom, two of the largest advertising firms in the world, decided to merge in order to fight off the aggressive inroads of Google, Facebook, and other tech companies that provide highly variegated yet precision information to advertisers. The ability to gather detailed data on the habits and preferences of individuals can be transformed into precision-strike ads for their screens. The same process is occurring in digital cameras. According to the Wall Street Journal, sales of low-end point-and-click digital cameras by Japanese manufacturers are down about 45% in the last year. This is obviously due to the inclusion of still and video camera capabilities in smart phones, along with the ability to upload and transfer the images immediately.

But it’s not just new products and services that can be disruptive to incumbents. One of my clients has been facing a downturn in purchasing in its industry for close to five years now, with little end in sight to the belt-tightening. An acquaintance of mine in a completely unrelated industry is facing lengthening timelines on payment, with very large clients squeezing their suppliers and forcing them to finance their cash flow. A former client is in the financial industry. She works for a very profitable and growing company that is cutting budgets in order to increase profits and hoard cash. Finally, several insurance executives have told me that continued low interest rates have a major impact on the profitability of their business. All of these phenomena impact on business just as much as new competitors, substitute products, or new technologies.

We have to be constantly ready to recreate and reinvent ourselves whether things are going well or going poorly. Obviously, it’s best to make our own products, processes, and services obsolete before others do, especially when we have the wherewithal to do so. But it’s all the more important when in difficulty. IBM is one of the most successful at this process of reinvention over the decades. Throughout this evolution, IBM always built on its existing businesses and expertise in order to transition to new capabilities and markets. Meanwhile, companies like Dell and HP, while making significant gains in IT services, are struggling with their large dependence on hardware, particularly desktop computers.

How does a company make the transition from current business to future business? This is not an easy process, but there are a few principles that can guide in the evolution:

•    Build on successes and strengths. This is what IBM has done well over the years. Google is also masterful at offering new products and services that build on dominance, for example, the Android operating system, which incorporates features and usability that exploit its dominance in search and precision-strike advertising.
•    Proceed by trial and error. Google exemplifies this principle, with its constant experimentation, innovation, and extension of existing concepts and services. Most of the company’s innovation is generated as a result of private initiatives that compete internally for investment and reinforcement.
•    Reward and reinforce individual initiative. Revolution and evolution from above rarely if ever work. They are inherently unpredictable and percolate from the bottom up.
•    Stop what isn’t working. Obviously, we have to be persistent when something doesn’t work at first, but there comes a time when we have to ask ourselves if further investment in time, energy, and money will lead to growth of the initiative. A rule of thumb I use is that an initiative has to show at least some level of success when it is first mooted. For instance, if I introduce a new service as a consultant and nothing happens, then that is a good indication that it won’t work, no matter how much energy and resources I pour into it. On the other hand, any interest, no matter how small, shows at least some potential that can be built upon.
•    Revive and resuscitate. The Newton was Apple’s first attempt at a handheld computer, but it never really took off. Despite that, the company learned a lot from the experience. When technology evolved to the point that the concept could be explored anew, it led eventually to the iPad.
•    Offer new products and services to existing customers. This may be obvious, but I find that companies often put themselves through agonies to develop completely new products for markets that they’ve never touched before. This is very risky, as there is not only the risk associated with new products and everything that can entail in terms of suppliers, operations, distribution channels, marketing and advertising, but then you have to enter a market that you have very little knowledge of. You’re doubling the risk but no necessarily the reward potential.

I could go on with this list, but the point is to be willing to explore new possibilities. This entails accepting that your best successes and strengths of the past and present may not continue on into the future. We should all be constantly questioning our assumptions. This is something that I learned in my 26-year military career, and as a student of military and business history. All successes eventually become the source of a downfall, unless they are used as a springboard to continuous evolution and revolution.

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.

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

Richard Martin’s Morning Morning Brilliant Manoeuvres — 10 June 2013

Posted: June 10, 2013 in Geopolitics
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Brilliant Manoeuvre
Disable your opponent’s centre of gravity–his unique source of balance and strength–and do so quickly and with resolve when you have a window of opportunity.

Discussion
Whatever you make think of the overall political and strategic rationale, the US-led invasion of Iraq in early 2003 is a textbook case of attacking when the time is right even though you aren’t fully ‘ready.’ Coalition forces invaded Iraq with lightning speed and continually kept the Iraqi forces reeling. The offensive had so much momentum that there was barely time to assemble and process prisoners. American forces headed almost straight for Baghdad–the strategic objective–and didn’t waste time with sidefights and securing flanks. This is also exactly how the German invasion of France in 1940 played out. The Germans headed straight for the Channel coast in order to cut off the bulk of French mobile forces that had moved forward into Belgium where they expected the bulk of the German army to attack.

Tip
These historical military examples show that there are occasions when boldness and speed can more than make up for uncertainty, relative weakness, and lack of resources. They also demonstrate that you have to aim for the centre of gravity to disable it as quickly as possible. Whether you’re in sales, product development, procurement, etc., the best objective is to attack your opponent’s or your problem’s centre of gravity quickly and directly.

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.

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