Five Ways to Win in Business

<div> In classical strategy, we say that your goal is to constantly advance your position. It is unnecessary and usually impossible to make large gains all at once. The key is to make small, unstoppable improvements every day. We don’t have to “beat” our competitors, we simply have to position ourselves to win. This begs the question of what we mean by “advancing your position.” Sun Tzu identified five factors that make up your position. Improving on them advances your position. These five include mission, ground, heaven, command, and methods. Here is a brief definition of each and how you can improve upon them to advance your position. 1. MISSION: Get more and more people to accept your philosophy, mission, or see you as having the higher moral standard than your competitors. 2. COMMAND: Convince more and more people that your leadership is better. This can happen in five ways: a. You are more trustworthy. b. You are smarter in terms of learning what your customers want and need. c. You care more about achieving your mission rather than just money. d. You have the courage to face the bad times (take action) without freezing or fleeing. e. You can handle the excess of command when power is granted to you. 3. GROUND: Take more land or customers (converts). 4. METHODS: Make your team of people work better together, communicate better, and be more efficient. Your people are seen as better trained and more professional. 5. HEAVEN: You have no control over this aspect, but it effects you. Do the “times” support your endeavor more or less than your competitor. How often do we hear of people that are “behind the times” or even “ahead of their time?” The result in both cases is the same - failure. It’s biggest relationship is to the courage of the leader as identified above. These five are always a comparison to your competitors. They are meaningless without something by which to compare them against. They have no objective measure or value. People gravitate toward what they perceive to “better.” The key word here is “perceive.” It may not be real. At first, it’s often a façade, but over time it becomes real. Put it to Work: The first thing you must do is determine where you are right now in comparison to your competitors. Naturally, it will be different for each competitor so you will have to compare yourself to all of them. Fist, ask yourself who gets higher marks or more buy-in on the mission of the company. You or your competitor? Second, ask yourself who gets higher marks for their command. You or your competitor? Third, ask yourself who gets higher marks for having the most customers? Many people like to be with the “in” crowd. Fourth, who has better methods? Finally, who is better supported by the business climate or the emotional fad of the day? If you honestly rate yourself against your competitor the current winner is obvious. You will notice that it’s not just who has more tally marks in each area, it is also affected by which is most important at the time of comparison. In some industries such as fashion, “heaven” or the emotional trends of the time are far more important than other factors and should receive higher consideration. You may want to establish a factor analysis before doing your comparison to keep you honest. With the results of your analysis in hand, you are able to determine where you should focus your strategy to advance your position. You must be at least equal in all areas and better in the one that counts to win. </div> 2009-03-24T20:24:39Z

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five-ways-to-win-in-business

2009-03-26T12:36:03Z

In classical strategy there are five factors that determine your position and therefore your victory. This article describes these five factors and gives some tips on competitive analysis.

Five Ways to Win in Business

2009-03-26T12:36:03Z