Wednesday 24 February 2016

Serial Temporary Advantage

Not able to understand one’s business nature and appropriate strategy is what I see a major reason of companies not able to get a place for themselves in the market.  Companies float between various approaches of strategy without realising what actually they need for success. The situation becomes more cumbersome for a conglomerate, comprised of various businesses, having need of specific strategy approaches for each business.

Of late, you pick up any article on business strategy or talk to Business Heads, you will find mostly talking about how to ensure SUSTAINABLE COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE for their respective business, without understanding that it may not be possible for them to achieve it as their individual businesses are in different phases of evolution & market placement. Nature of a business and phase they are in, differentiates the need of having a specific approach to succeed, eventually.

Through this blog, I would like to stress upon the need to look for SERIAL but TEMPORARY ADVANTAGE instead of always looking for Sustainable Competitive Advantage to run a business successfully. As I say, ‘backstroke doesn't work when you are facing strong cross current in a river’, so is the case with businesses.

Serial Temporary Advantage is quite beneficial for companies which have either entered the market recently or have introduced new products, which are still to grab the consumer attention. This approach, however primarily provides required edge to companies which can neither predict the market, nor having capabilities to shape it.

New and nimble companies, having flexibility and adaptability to their side, are able to deal with such situations of not having predictability and malleability capabilities, well.

To add here, sustenance is only possible, when an organisation has built fortress in either capabilities, differentiation or scaling up.

In the last, comprehension of market should be looked at while deciding whether to go for Sustainable Competitive Advantage or Serial Temporary Advantage.


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