Business Solutions

Looking closely at the different tactical strategies developed and honed to a highly-skilled discipline by Great Entrepreneurs, we recognize that one very important Entrepreneurial tactic aims at formidable market leadership if not dominance, and is an aggressive hard-hitting approach right from the start, following a clear plan to have a permanent leadership position. It is important to note that before an Entrepreneur embarks on this bold strategy they must clearly understand and realize that it’s the one tactic that represents the greatest gamble or risk. There is very little room for mistakes and absolutely no room for any second chances.

Everything has to work out precisely for this strategy to be a success, and it necessitates a considerable amount of time for thought, reflection, careful analysis and examination, and purposeful preparation of a business plan. In addition, the strategy demands substantial resources and continuing efforts to preserve and maintain the leadership position. If not, then unfortunately all the work simply creates a market for a competitor to seize the position as the leader.

Indeed, there are many who clearly feel this strategy presents such an enormous risk that the development of other stratagems has taken place. A direct result of the notion that the leadership tactic will most likely fail more often than it can possibly succeed. This leads us to another important Entrepreneur’s line of attack that simply takes what has already been developed by another, making improvements that create a better product or service than the innovative Entrepreneurs that first developed it for the market.

Basically, the idea is to let someone else innovate, and then quickly proceed with their idea and provide the consumers what they really want and are more than eager to pay for. A great example of this is when IBM created the PC after Apple successfully created the market with its leadership strategy, and within two years it had taken over from Apple leadership in the personal computer field, becoming the fastest-selling brand and the standard all other entries in the market are compared to.

The main point to understand is that IBM chose a much less risky Entrepreneurial market approach, and succeeded at it. Although since then, Apple Computer has been a great success, as the original innovator it might have failed to completely understand its success in the beginning.

This type of tactical approach starts with the markets, is both market-focused and market-driven, requires a rapidly growing-market, satisfies an already existing market-demand rather than having to create one, and has proven likely to work most successfully in high-tech industries for one very simple reason; high-tech Entrepreneurs and Innovators are least likely to be market-focused and naturally concentrate on the technology and product.

The strategy of imitation or replication involves a very high degree of innovation, as it is not good enough to offer same product or services at a lower cost to the market. Consumers are looking for the increased-value of even greater innovation in addition to competitive pricing.

Openings or voids in the market are created by poor habits and frequently simple mistakes of market leaders including arrogance and the overconfidence of believing that something cannot be any good unless they thought of it first. By focusing entirely upon one segment of the market, typically the high profit segment, and ignoring the volume of the larger market, market leaders can swiftly bring about their own sudden failure in the leadership position.

Market leaders often exhibit a complete misunderstanding of quality which is not what the innovator puts in, but what the consumer market is ultimately willing to pay for. A leader also tends at times to price products and services too high, creating significant market opportunities for competitive Entrepreneurs, while at the same time, failing to adapt to more diverse segments of the market.

Finally, Great Entrepreneurs are always prepared to act swiftly and decisively to take advantage of favorable market conditions attributable to the mistakes and indecisiveness of soon-to-be former market leaders.