Play your own corporate game - Bird Lovegod

I’ve been playing a lot of chess in the last month, ever since watching Queen’s Gambit. And it’s got me thinking about competition in business, and how that doesn’t seem to really apply as much as it used to. Back in the olden days a business plan would have a whole chapter on ‘The Competition’ … what they’re doing, how well they’re doing, and how to ‘beat them’.
Bird Lovegod: 'I’ve been playing a lot of chess in the last month, ever since watching Queen’s Gambit. And it’s got me thinking about competition in business...'Bird Lovegod: 'I’ve been playing a lot of chess in the last month, ever since watching Queen’s Gambit. And it’s got me thinking about competition in business...'
Bird Lovegod: 'I’ve been playing a lot of chess in the last month, ever since watching Queen’s Gambit. And it’s got me thinking about competition in business...'

This is a rather, dare I say it, ‘masculine’ approach to enterprise and it’s basically an obsolete way of thinking, the Cobra Kai of commerce, although I suspect it’ll still be taught in business schools for the next decade.

Considering the current commercial catastrophic crisis of Covid, ‘the competition’ is an irrelevancy. And in good, creative business, competition isn’t really anything to focus on.

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The game isn’t about ‘beating the competition’ it’s about creating a new product or service or delivery process or business model or technology innovation that people want to use and purchase. It’s a creative challenge, not a competitive one.

Comparisons with the alternative offerings in the market, yes, these can be helpful, but comparing yourself, or modelling your business on the competition is an almost certain way to lose.

What’s the point of creating a business that’s a cheaper version of the existing product or service? Unless it’s massively cheaper, at least half the price, it’s pointless.

If you do intend to compete on price, the only way to really win is to create a system or model that changes the industry in such a way as to make huge price differences possible.

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If you can change the game to make a product or service free, then yes, good play, but you can only do that by reimagining everything else. Creativity in business is the decisive factor, the game changer, the ability to write new rules and tear up old ones, and it requires thinking and being different. Which is why focussing on ‘the competition’ is counter productive. Start-ups don’t fail because of the competition, almost ever.

They might fail because they modelled themselves on the competition, or because they picked a fight with the competition, or because they failed to massively differentiate from the competition, but it’s got nothing to do with anything the competition is doing.

The ones who survive and thrive are the ones who are radically different to the others and therefore aren’t competing directly with anyone.

No point in starting a battle for resources against an established competitor. Business isn’t about beating the competitors, it’s about being inventive enough and creative enough or excellent enough to be able to completely ignore any so-called competition and focus only on what you do, on who you serve, and on who you work with and employ to do so.

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In chess, you have to have an eye on what the opponent is doing, but if you focus excessively on them, you play a reactive game, always defending.

If you play your own game, in your own way you find yourself not playing against someone else, but playing a game of your own choices.

Bird Lovegod is an independent fintech consultant.

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