Summary
Today there are two extremes in business competition. Companies can play softball, relying on weak tactics that look like strategies but do little more than keep the company in the game for the short term. Or they can play hardball, employing tough strategies designed to rout, not simply beat, competitors. Hardball players live by five principles: 1. Hardball players focus relentlessly on competitive advantage. 2. Hardball competitors strive to convert competitive advantage into decisive advantage. 3. Hardball players employ the indirect attack. 4. Hardball players exploit their employees' will to win. 5. Hardball players draw a bright line at the edge of the caution zone. Any strategy that provides a decisive competitive advantage is a hardball strategy. Six classic hardball strategies that have proved, over the decades, to be particularly effective in generating competitive advantage, are: 1. Unleash massive and overwhelming force. 2. Exploit anomalies. 3. Threaten your competitor's profit sanctuaries. 4. Take it and make it your own. 5. Entice your competitors into retreat. 6. Break compromises.
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Playing Hardball: Why Strategy Still Matters
For a time, it seemed that strategy didn't matter any more, particularly during the e-commerce boom. The brilliant promise of web-based business temporarily blinded many managers, academics and investors to the fundamentals of strategy. Strategy has always been about allocating resources to stimulate customer demand and create competitive advantage. The greater the advantage, the faster a company can grow, the more profitable it can be, and the greater value it can create. But in the first rush of e-commerce, a lot of investment dollars and management talent went into ventures that did not have competitive advantage from the get-go - like Boo.com, BBQ.com, Lifejacketstore.com - and were doomed.
The bust of e-commerce reminded everyone, all too painfully, that strategy always matters. Today, it matters more than ever. Competitive intensity is at an all-time high as a result of globalization, technology, fragmented consumer groups, and shifting power along the supply/demand chain. But while gaining a competitive advantage is harder than ever, strategy is again being pushed off the management agenda - not by e-commerce, but by "managerially correct" demands. Even when managers want to focus on creating and r...See the full content of this document
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