A competitive market brings the best out of the players competing in it. Hence, it is essential for a #startup or an #msme to understand its competition and place its strategy accordingly, that would help the startup to position itself in the right target audience and help it tap the market with good counter strategies.
When there is no competition, there isn’t any fighting spirit left and that doesn’t help any startup to grow or succeed and it isn’t also good for the industry. Flipkart had Amazon to fight and get inspiration from. It could position itself well amongst the target audience and eventually succeeded in selling itself to a giant like Wal-Mart.
In order to further understand the phenomenon of competitive market and spirit, let us take an example of tennis and the Big 3 – Novak, Federer, Nadal. Novak took his game to next level by fighting these two legends and became an equal to them eventually. In 2009, when Federer had 16 slams and Nadal was on 9 Novak just had 1 slam under his belt. In last 13 years he won remaining 20 slams. As I write this Federer has 20 slams, Djokovic has 21 slams and Nadal leads them with 22 slams. Whopping 63 slams between the 3, this is unimaginable! Had there been no Federer or Nadal to look upto or get inspiration from, there might not have been Novak at this level.
When Sampras played he was the only tall player, with Agassi trying to match him but wasn’t of that scale. Sampras eventually retired with 14 slams without winning the French Open. Agassi was second best with 8 slams – 6 less than Sampras. Though Agassi to his credit could win French Open and was the only player of that era to win all the 4 slams. This is how bad a non-competitive market is, the players loses their steam to compete and leave the game too soon!
