Quotes About Competition

A product becomes a commodity within a specific market segment when the repeated changes in the basis of competition, as described above, completely play themselves out, that is, when market needs on each attribute or dimension of performance have been fully satisfied by more than one available product. The

Hence, because flash cards are being used in markets completely different from those Quantum and Seagate typically engage—palmtop computers, electronic clipboards, cash registers, electronic cameras, and so on—the value network framework would predict that firms similar to Quantum and Seagate are not likely to build market-leading positions in flash memory. This

Facebook is actually competing with cigarettes to be hired for the same Job to Be Done. Which the smoker chooses will depend on the circumstances of his struggle in that particular moment.

But this book is not about companies with such weaknesses: It is about well-managed companies that have their competitive antennae up, listen astutely to their customers, invest aggressively in new technologies, and yet still lose market dominance.

The fear of cannibalizing sales of existing products is often cited as a reason why established firms delay the introduction of new technologies.

the firms that led the industry in every instance of developing and adopting disruptive technologies were entrants to the industry, not its incumbent leaders.

Why do well-managed companies fail? He concludes that they often fail because the very management practices that have allowed them to become industry leaders also make it extremely difficult for them to develop the disruptive technologies that ultimately steal away their markets.

There is no evidence that any of the leaders in developing and adopting sustaining technologies developed a discernible competitive advantage over the followers

they reached as far upmarket as they could in each new product generation, until their drives packed the capacity to appeal to the value networks above them. It is this upward mobility that makes disruptive technologies so dangerous to established firms—and so attractive to entrants.

It is in disruptive innovations, where we know least about the market, that there are such strong first-mover advantages. This is the innovator's dilemma.

When the performance of two or more competing products has improved beyond what the market demands, customers can no longer base their choice upon which is the higher performing product.

You need to define an opportunity that is disruptive relative to all the established players in the targeted market, or you should not invest in the idea.

In sustaining circumstances—when the race entails making better products that can be sold for more money to attractive customers—we found that incumbents almost always prevail. In disruptive circumstances—when the challenge is to commercialize a simpler, more convenient product that sells for less money and appeals to a new or unattractive customer set—the entrants are likely to beat the incumbents.

established firms tend to be good at improving what they have long been good at doing, and that entrant firms seem better suited for exploiting radically new technologies, often because they import the technology into one industry from another, where they had already developed and practiced it.

established firms attempt to push the technology into their established markets, while the successful entrants find a new market that values the technology.

You can only shape the experiences that are important to your customers when you understand who you are really competing with.

it means that disruptive technologies that may underperform today, relative to what users in the market demand, may be fully performance-competitive in that same market tomorrow.

Once both technologies were good enough in the basic capabilities demanded, therefore, the basis of product choice in the market shifted to reliability.

That is why it could happen anywhere, given the right ingredients: particular people in government, competing with others- or with each other- over natural and wealth-creating resources.

Sport, they called it, but that had been nothing more than a softer name for the bloodlust that man had carried

Sometimes nature is even crueller than politics.

Isaac Bell slowly laid his cards on the table one by one. "A straight flush

is almost a certainty that a well-planned offense will defeat an unplanned defense every single time.

Salem and Portland were founded by New Englanders, the latter named by a native of Portland, Maine, after winning a coin toss with a Bostonian.