Chasing the leader is better than chasing the era

If you are a latecomer and weaker person in the market, how can you find the right strategy and method to catch up with your peers and strive to come from behind? The obvious and most sought after answer is to learn from leading companies! The reason seems unquestionable. The leading company is leading. His strategy and method path must be correct. He must walk at the forefront of the industry. Who should he not learn? Let us do better!

As a result, "XX's success can be duplicated," and it can be seen as a copycat. What leading companies do, chasers work hard, what leading companies do, and what chasers try to do. Reflected in the product market, it is easy to see similar packages, similar advertisements, similar promotions, and prices that are comparable to each other on the same type of product in the same level market.

The idea of ​​“learning from leading companies”, which seems to be a shortcut, is in fact a great misleading and pitfall! All you have to do is look around. It's easy to see that no single company or individual's success depends on the success of a successful copy, including the success of individuals and companies who claim that their success can be replicated. The spirit of success, the laws revealed by success, etc. can be learned and used for reference. The more specific and unique methods and methods are the management models, innovation mechanisms, marketing strategies and methods, market development paths, etc. Nor will it succeed.

In general, leading companies cannot learn and copying are less desirable for two reasons: First, there is no exactly the same enterprise. Your resources and capabilities are different from those of the benchmarking companies. The markets and consumers you face are generally different (if you learn from the leading companies, they will occupy the same group of consumers in the same market as the leading companies. Those who will do more will not be able to do more than lead the company. Paths and methods can only be found and formulated in light of their actual situation. The second is that successful enterprises cannot be learned today because the strategies and methods after his success are completely different from the current ones, even if learning should be his yesterday. However, another problem has arisen. The method that worked yesterday was the market environment of yesterday. Where did you find yesterday's market environment? The result of copy-based learning and cloning is that it will always catch up and will always be misplaced and will always fall behind.

In the market, the leader is your biggest opponent to success. Can you ignore his existence in the process of catching up? Not at all, what is the value of leading companies for chasers? My opinion is that we must both pay attention to the leader and ignore the leader.

At the micro level, we attach great importance to carefully studying the leaders and doing different things or the opposite.

The last thing you should do in marketing is to do the same thing with the leading company and do things in the same way.

Leading companies and benchmarking brands give us few opportunities to discover and seize weaknesses and mistakes. What if we do not have obvious weaknesses for us to use? Its strengths and longevity are "soft ribs." With it, you have the possibility of success. Note that what we are talking about here is not dry.

Why do you have to fight against it?

First, the strengths and longevity of the leader. Are you trying to catch up and surpass it? It is easier to achieve catch-up and beyond! The more obvious and deeper the leader's strengths and longevity are, the more hopeless the catch-up strategy of convergence is. Just as you want to declare that your own roast duck is more authentic than Quanjude, no one will believe it.

Second, the opposition of the leader is the weakest point of the leader's strength. If you stand on the opposite side of it, the leader will do nothing for you. Because the advantages and longevity of the leader cannot be changed, it cannot be changed. Therefore, the advantages and longevity of the leader are its "Gate of Life". The stronger the leader, the more distinct the characteristics, and the easier it is for the challenger to find opportunities in its opposition.

Thirdly, confrontation allows the challenger to easily establish his position in the market by taking advantage of the leader. Because when consumers are familiar with the leader, what is the opposite of the leader?

By placing yourself on the opposite side of the leader, you are expected to fight for the rest of its business! Since older people drink Coca-Cola, please ask young people to drink Pepsi. Who would still like to drink Royal Crown?

Pepsi had once asked for Coca-Cola acquisitions three times weaker, and “a new generation of choices” has forced opponents into chaos and even once did not even want the mysterious formula that they were proud of. Obviously, how powerful is the force that works against it. Today, Pepsi Cola is on an equal footing with Coca-Cola.

Why does Wong Lo Kat herbal tea have such a big market? This puzzles many people. The secret is that it regards soft drinks as its own opponents. In fact, it defines the soft drink as quenching the thirst, and Wong Lo Kat as an inner fire. It is no longer a medicine drink, but a drink that can be frequently consumed. The same market, the opposite of positioning, was successful. According to this logic, activation, screaming and other brands are not the best practices. They only emphasize the uniqueness of the product, there is no association, there is no comparison, there is no reference, the establishment of product attributes and concepts from zero, it is difficult to become the mainstream consumer goods.

On the macro level, chase the times instead of chasing the leader.

Zhang Ruimin said, “Enterprises are era-driven, and you can only continue to develop by constantly seizing opportunities. The average life expectancy of the world's top 500 companies is only 30 to 40 years. One of the important reasons is that they have not truly become one after the other. The enterprises of the era. Since they want to become the enterprises of the era, they should create new business models in the new era."

The author of "Large Trends" John Nesbit said: "Success depends not on problem solving but on opportunities."

With the advent of the Internet era, traditional enterprises in the traditional economy have brought very big challenges: information from asymmetry to high levels of interoperability has led to the fragmentation of marketing. What we are facing is no longer a mass market, but a niche. The development of personalized markets, social networks and mobile services has further accelerated this pace.

In this sense, leading companies can do nothing, and they must dare to ignore the leaders, be companies that chase the times, be companies that meet the trends and progress of the times, and be the best themselves. Only in this way can they stand in the forest of enterprises. Apple embraced the smart age and surpassed Nokia, which looks unparalleled.

The market has changed. Did you keep up with this era?

This article was published in the April 2012 "Sugar and Tobacco" food publication.