The Strategist Notebook

Thursday, May 15, 2008

Poem: The China Dilemma

A Poem-Published by the Washington Post. A well written piece of poem depicting the dilemma that China has been facing the US and some other nations.

When we were the Sick Man of Asia, We were called The Yellow Peril.

When we are billed to be the next Superpower, we are called The Threat.

When we closed our doors, you smuggled drugs to our open markets.

When we embrace Free Trade, You blame us for taking away your jobs.

When we were falling apart, You marched in your troops and look what you wanted.

When we tried to put the broken pieces back together again, freeTibet you screamed, It Was an Invasion!

When we tried Communism, you hated us for being Communist.

When we embrace Capitalism, you ridicule us for being Capitalist.

When we have a billion people, you said we were destroying the planet.

When we tried limiting our numbers, you said we abused human rights.

When we were poor, you thought we were dogs.

When we loan you cash, you blame us for your national debt.

When we build our industries, you call us Polluters.

When we sell you goods, you blame us for global warming.

When we buy oil, you call it exploitation and genocide.

When you go to war for oil, you call it liberation.

When we were lost in chaos and rampage, you demanded rules of law.

When we uphold law and order against violence, you call it violating human rights.

When we were silent, you said you wanted us to have free speech.

When we are silent no more, you say we are brainwashed-xenophobics.

Why do you hate us so much, we asked.No, you answered, we don't hate you.

We don't hate you either,

But, do you understand us?

Of course we do, you said,

We have AFP, CNN and BBC's...

What do you really want from us?

Think hard first, then answer...Because you only get so many chances.

Enough is Enough,

Enough Hypocrisy for

This One World.

We want One World,

One Dream, and Peace on Earth.

This Big Blue Earth is Big Enough for all of Us.

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Monday, May 5, 2008

Before You Armour Up For A Price War

Competition in business are unavoidable. However competition can also afflict an industry like a cancer. Left undetected, competition may intensify and spread, threatening the survival of all but the hardiest competitors. Although it is important to have early detection and anticipation of the competitive market conditions, it is also equally important to understand a few basic underpinning theory before we draft a response.

Think of the value and profit as a pie as as shown by picture above, to be divided among competitors and consumers. Were it not for competition, this value may be shown as picture in the top pie above. Consumers would get some share of the value, but the lion's share would go to the competitors.

If businessmen want to partake from the pie at the top instead of the one at the bottom (which is common sense, really), they should keep the following ideas in mind:

An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. Create conditions for your firm and the industry to minimize the intensity of price competition.
Be thy brother's keeper. Your actions may harm competitors. Their response may do the same to you.
People who live in glass houses should not throw stones. Some markets are more prone to price wars than others. If you cannot eliminate the conditions that precipitate price competition, then try to avoid throwing the first stone.
He who laughs last laughs best. In the worst case scenario, price wars devolve into wars of attrition. If such a battlelooms, it is essential to determine if and how you can win it.

Of course, it never hurts to increase the size of the pie . Or, have additional pies on your plate perhaps.

"We do not have a crisis of competition, we have a crisis of creativity"-KS Lye.

Reference: Dranove,D.& Marciano,S.(2005), "Kellog on Strategy", John Wiley and Son. Canada.

The Reason Why Alice is Lost In Wonderland: Goals and misdirection

Ever notice how some people do better than others. Some companies make more money than others. Some government seems to have better policy while some anarchy.

Have you ever thoughts that perhaps because there are smarter people? Or that the element of luck is in play? Of just that some people have the right timing.

There is an old parable about strategy- derived from ‘Alice in Wonderland’ - conversation between the cat and Alice:

“Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?” asked Alice

“That depends a good deal on where you want to go from here”? said the cat

“I don’t much care where-“ said Alice.

“Then it doesn’t matter which way you go,” said the cat.

If you don’t know where you want to go, any road will take you there,

This story exemplifies what is happening to many people. Every day, in the city or in the country, millions of people woke up to their daily cores without having a plan. To many people, life or work has become so routine that one forgot where they really want to go.

Often we are caught up in life’s little ‘misdirection’, a term used often in magic tricks whereby magician uses his fingers to point to a direction to take away the audience focus, so that he can hide his objects with the other hand. Think of all the little life’s misdirection around you. Having a baby, job transfer, finance commitment etc. Did life’s little misdirection took you away from your goals and where you wanted to head to?

Pause and think.

Tuesday, April 15, 2008

Difficult Judgement

In a small town in India , a person decided to open up his Bar business, which was right opposite to the Temple . The Temple & its congregation started a campaign to block the Bar from opening with petitions and prayed daily against his business.

Work progressed. However, when it was almost complete and was about to open a few days later, a strong lightning struck the Bar and it was burnt to the ground.The temple folks were rather smug in their outlook after that, till the Bar owner sued the Temple authorities on the grounds that the Temple through its congregation & prayers was ultimately responsible for the demise of his bar shop, either through direct or indirect actions or means. In its reply to the court, the temple vehemently denied all responsibility or any connection that their prayers were reasons to the bar shop ' s demise.

As the case made its way into court, the judge looked over the paperwork at the hearing and commented:I don ' t know how I ' m going to decide this case,but it appears from the paperwork, we have a bar owner who believes in the power of prayer and
we have an entire temple and its devotees that doesn't.'