CURVEBALLS
After 2 years, one of the authors of Hardball, feeling misunderstood after his first article which seemed to imply playing dirty or mean - not true - authored Curveballs.

Hardball is getting rough and tough with the competition.
Curveball is a strategy that fools them to do something dumb that they otherwise wouldn't have done; or not to do something smart that they otherwise would have done.

So the recommended curveball strategies:
1. Draw your rival out of the profit zone
When Barclays and SCB were kingpins, SCB starts pursuing efficient banking model to serve up-market shutting down branches everywhere. Barclays follows, without too much thought yet their profits came from the more middle class customer.

2. Let Rivals Misinterpret your Success
Is it fair to say Uchumi misinterpreted Nakumatt's rapid growth? It seemed the answer was mega stores with everything (furniture, wheelbarrows, cars) in them. And go after them Uchumi did buying land everywhere, building bigger prettier warehouse stores, and rounding up all the inventory a household would dream of. But they overlooked the secret, that Nakumat was like a mall - they owned no assets!


3. Employ unfamilar techniques
Classic one is when Zain launched Vuka across network tarrif of 8.00/= for first time in Kenya. Safaricom was so surprised that they launched Mpaka Che - tarrif for prostitutes, crooks, and watchmen - much to the indignation of loyal subscribers.


4. Disguise your Success
Heaven knows why Unilever decided in 1998 to sell its seed crushing plant to a little known Thika firm, run by two brothers and their father, known as Bidco - Who the hell was Bidco? Unilever must have been happy getting rid of this brand, not knowing how successful Bidco had become. In the year prior to this sale, Bidco had expanded its capacity by 500%. And soon it was Elianto, Kimbo, and entire edible oils category of Unilever; before it became hygiene products and margarines under threat!


5. Stick rivals with Unprofitable Customers
For years, Safaricom made about 7% of its money from Postpaid customers. They were few, pickier, with bargaining power, and very demanding. And surprisingly often postpaid customer rued how all promos or campaigns seemed to overlook them.
Many a postpaid account KQ/Coke furiously marched out of Safaricom to the competitor, but heck how much did they change the fortunes of Zain?

seems Airtel's strategy is to WIPE OUT ALL COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGES OF SAFCOM. Basically;
(1)redistribute subscriber numbers by pushing for double sim onwership (2)cut of safcom fiancial muscle buy ruthlessly slashing margins so Safcom investment plan in new technologies gets slowed down and so is its ability to pay high wages to staffers (3)cut into subscriber loyaty by branding safcom as the expensive operator.

Airtel must have figured that after wiping out the competitive advantage of their rivals, then everyone in the industry will be on the same footing and the race starts again.

From indicatins, Airtel might just succeed in cutting off the competitive advantages of safcom. But will they win the race when it starts a second time. Orange could as well run with it

yes its true how best to try a mass market product than use faulu and DFID which sponsored the entire thing

'Society' taught me that I have to get a good education and "do something" with my life, so I blindly engage in educational and self development programs and activities, and then sit back and wait for my reward to come.

And so I wait. Then wait some more. When I’m done waiting, I wait a little longer.

What happens? Nothing! Absolutely nothing...... ABK!

Discussion above relates to mainly large organisation..... but let me give it a shot.

I acquire a small business… a bar. Small bar in an area where there are several other bars. Bigger pubs/bars. More established ‘bar & restaurants’.

My small bar does not even have space to set up a kitchen… but I can probably out source food from Kamande's butchery-come-nyama-choma joint nearby.

The bar+sitting area is not exactly spacious… but a few large mirrors seem to do a trick.

Very few customers…. mainly my relas & friends (out of pity)consume 1 or 2 crates on average per day during these tough 'Mututho days'.

What killer strategies could I use to trounce the competition?

Why is KTB not using one of this colourful strategies to market Kenya while one of the pharaohs are down ? I wonder what some fellows are paid to do

My lecturer in school used to tell us that strategy formulation need not be an arduous task. He said that the best strategies were formulated without any pressure and were advised by the simplest things in life.

@Ric dees: Although the Porter's five forces are a good analytical tool, they cannot be used in isolation as they have a number of limitations. Neither can any other analytical tool e.g. Ansoff's matrix, SWOT analysis.

I'm more inclined to think that if a company adopts one of Porter's Generic strategies e.g. cost leadership, differentiation or focus strategies, they can kill the competition effectively. You look around and see so many companies 'stuck in the middle' of offering a cheap but unique product!

Like mukiha says, many companies do not want to be market leaders. They are happy to be market players, only with a say in the market dynamics. The example of EAI and Bidco is very appropriate for this case.

@JkMwatha: For your bar, you first need to determine what you want, to beat your competition (i.e. more customers and more profits despite your capacity challenges) or kill the competition! To beat the competition, you need VAS for the consumers e.g prettier waitresses, bigger TVs, free bitings, clean loos etc. To kill competition, do what Bharti Airtel is doing!

@JK

Thats a good perspective because our economy is actually being driven by the SMEs. For small businesses, their main strategies would be what you would call the 'soft strategies" as listed by @sasha.... If you look at some of the big corporate organisations eg equity bank, that's how they penetrated the market. the "big boys" tend to ignore the small players. In your example of the bar, you could also add onto Sasha's list efficient services, personalised services(club like) because you have a small clientele, the sort of music played, clean environment, friendly services etc. You realise that most of the small businesses grow from word of mouth.

Sometimes head-on competition can run you out of business.... or leave you limping. Ask kuguru.... he did not even come close to what keroche is mainly because he went head-on with coca-cola too early.... keroche started in the "bush" and its only when it started nibbling into the giant's territories (brown bottles and malts) that we got to recognize its existence....by this time, EABL had ignored it for quiet a long time until it became a force that needed to be dealt with - same as what happened to emergence of EB vs SCB/BBK.

Sometimes its best to have your business right next to your competitors mainly because of the added advantage. Good example is hardwares and spareshop businesses... you dont want your shop to be on its own even if it seems like the 'better option' to minimize competition. for such businesses you want to be in the middle of the competition. As long as there is no outright market leader, rivalry is low and may be thats why we do not have many examples for SMEs in a topic like this.

Bottomline is, the strategy you intend to employ in your pursuit of higher market share/profits is majorly dictated by your competition.

@McReggae, spot-on!

u want to run a successful business. Do you:

1) study failed businesses and their causes of failure so that you
deliberately avoid the same pitfalls that did them in,

2) study successful businesses and what makes them successful so
that u adopt same?

@Intelligentsia: As much as I agree with muganda, it really depends on the industry you are joining. If the industry has huge underutilised potential e.g. cable TV industry, then you are better of looking at failed businesses. Here you have GTV as a good example.

Where the industry is bustling with competition and diminishing profitability, e.g. outdoor advertising, megastores etc., you would look at successful companies and try to adopt their strategy but at the same time unleashing your own competitive advantage. See Magnate Ventures and Nakumatt-Tuskys-Naivas.