Do you believe that there is no competition in Business?
December 1, 2008 by Fadzuli
Many a times, we always end up thinking that we are competing with another friend another company another country another…another…
Why is this so?
Again its because we have been place in a system which makes us think so. In truth the REAL competition is YOURSELF.
There’s an abundance of opportunities out there. There are places that some people just cannot access because of many reasons.
For example. Recently I’ve gotten a Non Muslim who tries to ask my company to promote an Electronic Device that helps to read the Quran. You see without understanding or knowing what is the Quran and understanding the Islamic Market, he has no business at all.
The only way that he can penetrate into the market is through another Muslim who understands the products and understand the market to serve it to the Muslim market.
Another example is as such..
I may know only so and so and when I advertise or promote my services, I can only reach a certain number of people who are within my network. Beyond that I need you to help me get there.
So you see. I have several designers and programmers in my network and hardly i see myself competiting with each other because we end up sharing the jobs. How much can one man or one company take. You see there are limitations. When one is full to the brim, you need to refer over to another company who can do the same work else you will lose the opportunity.
How do you gain? Sometimes you pass the jobs over without asking for any price but most of the time we should ask for a cut because without YOU, there is no Business for the other party. Get it? And when you do this DONT be Greedy! Take a reasonable cut perhaps 5% to 10% and empower your partnering companies
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What I’m really sad is that there are too many greedy entrepreneurs out there who really do not understand how to do business and how to share. They believe in the SURVIVAL of the FITTEST. If you believe in such nonsense, people will bound to hate you. You may not realise it now but someday when you are rich, people will remember how you become rich in a negative manner. Usually such businesses have a very low life span. Perhaps 5 to 10 years Max.
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The TRUE competition is within yourself… If you believe you have grown smarter and are much maturer than a year ago and compared to last time you have more knowledge and you have more friends. Isn’t that growth. Even if you fail but you learn am I right? That is what you need to learn from and grow from. As long there is growth and you keep exploring and learning new things, you will eventually get to your destination.
So go out there take the challenges and always tell yourself to be BETTER and DO IT!
Superb!
This is exactly the sort of article Malay businessmen need to read.
I’ve learnt alot in my journey in business, and trust me, the people that had zero ethics in business never make it. all they want is to makan you.
Of course, a successful business is one that conquers the market. In my area of business, I sell avast antivirus. In order to ensure people go to you, I have to corner my market and force people to buy from me. I was the first to enter this market. I give other businesses a choice, they can go head to head and compete with me, which they will lose, because I have already laid out my battle ground. OR, they can be my partner, by reselling under me.
Those who resell under me have a better relationship with me obviously. At the end of the day, business IS personal. And one should play the game to win. But if there’s no market entry that will guarantee that success, then you have to play together.
The malay market is damn small. It’s suffocating. So work together and that’s the best way forward.
Indeed, there are no competitors in business.
We are all partners working hand in hand, providing, rendering the best services to our clients.
You cant do everything on your own.
Leverage on others expertise, is the fastest way, to move forward.
Strive ahead!
A good tool to benchmark competition is what we call Porter’s forces model. Google it up and have a read. It’s a good and proper tool to organize random thoughts on competition.
I think your article highlights well on what we call Complementors. Yes, it does sound nice and feel good to say that real competition is within yourself, but we need more than motivating activators when it comes to dealings in real life. In a utopian situation, yes, we shuld all just get along. But we don’t live in that state… and having a mindset on positivity as what your article encourages must be accompanied by a set of tools as well. Pikir positive tapi tak tahu aper actually nak BUAT pun tak guner. Tu bual world… as malays would call it =p
But maturity comes when we realize the realities, and develop capable actual solutions to current problems. What I mean is that yes, we should realize that true competition within yourself… but we also have to deal with “untrue competition” too, coining your term. Dealing with them… that means going beyond feel good “Yes we can” kinda tones, and moving next to “Yes we can… and this is what we need to DO”
Thinking strategically about competitors and complementors. From my training in business school, Michael Porter’ works is a good reference. He’s a professor at harvard business school btw… specializing in this very topic. We were drilled on his strategic thinking, and it’s superb. You can also check out Governing Dynamics by Neo Chen (NTU proff i think). Not that i am a geeky guy recommending these proffs… but these guys should know what they’re talking about too, cause they have that Professorship or “Ulama” title in circular terms, gained from much much much research and experience.
Sun Tzu’s art of war is superb as well. Donald Trump recommends it. So do i. Pick up the copy translated and explained by Proff Wee.
Panjang nyer comment aku… sorry. It’s just one topic im passionate about in marketing, and i just thought id develop on ur article, so that u and ur readers know what to do next. =p
Thanks Hafihz! No problem you can even write a whole blog posts and divert my readers to your blog in the future.
What matters is that we share the TRAFFIC and we share the information.