Corporate Combat

Michael Porter meets Sun Tzu in this essential guide to beating the competition on the business battlefield.

The language of the military has long been an integral part of our business vernacular — we 'defend market share', 'go on offensive' and use 'killer apps'. And we are all aware of the McDonald's vs Burger King 'burger war', the Microsoft vs Netscape 'browser war', and the 'cola war' between Coke and Pepsi. But we could do no better than to look to actual military history and the way that battles have been fought and won over the past 2500 years to find ways of winning on the business battlefield.

Corporate Combat adds the historical context and modern business application to the 'business is war' metaphor. It presents a fascinating interweaving of real military campaigns with actual business cases to demonstrate how millennia of military strategy can be used to build a competitive business strategy for the next century.

From the triumphs of the great Roman armies to the major battles of the American Civil War, from guerrilla warfare in Indochina to the strategic genius of Alexander the Great, the author shows how to apply and adopt the actual strategies of centuries of military campaigns to your business in order to beat the competition.

In a book that will appeal to anyone involved in business strategy from mid- to top-management, Nick Skellon demonstrates that the three lessons of successful military operations — possession of an effective SWAT (superior weapons and tactics system), a high force:space ratio, and a strong defensive position — are directly transferable to a business seeking competitive advantage.

A thorough understanding of the lessons will enable any company, of any size, to determine which of the four fundamental strategies is the most successful one to pursue. With examples from companies as diverse as Wal-Mart, Dyson, Microsoft and Honda, Nick Skellon shows that with the right strategy, deployed at the right time, your company can compete with the giants even though it may not be one, turn its competitor into followers and thrive in te competitive market.

1. Corporate Combat: Market Warfare
• The three lessons of warfare
• Possessing a 'SWAT'
• Developing a competitive SWAT
• Possessing a high force:space ratio
• Possessing a strong defensive position
• Applying the three lessons to your strategy
• Head-to-head strategies
• Raiding strategies
• Which strategy is right for you?
• Part I: The Three Most Important Lessons of Warfare
2. The Force:Space Ratio
• Battering the enemy into submission: El Alamein, 1942
• Numerical superiority: Lanchester's N-square law
• My wallet is bigger than your wallet
• Numerical superiority: Microsoft vs Netscape
• The power of economies of scale: Intel
• The bigger get bigger while the small…
• The law of increasing returns: Microsoft's MS-DOS and IBM
• The importance of the force:space ratio
• The force:space ratio: Napoleon and the French system of corps
• Achieving local superiority
• Achieving local superiority: the Battle of Blenheim, 1704
• Achieving local superiority: the Arab-Israeli War, 1973
• The force:space ration in business: the downside of size
3. The Tactical Primacy of the Defense
• The Battle of Thermopylae, 481 BC
• The Battle if the Somme, 1916
• The power of fighting defensively in business
• The tactical power of the defense: Barnes & Nobles vs Amazon
• Four levels of customer fortifications
• Improving service levels: Dyson
• Building customer relationships: Nestlé Buitoni
• Creating exit barriers for customers: frequent flyer schemes
• Building barriers for the competition: Wall's ice cream
• The importance of securing the flanks
• The Gulf War: Operation Desert Storm, 1990
• Securing the flanks commercially
• Securing the flanks: Kingfisher vs Wal-Mart
• Honda vs Harley-Davidson
• New Coke
• Self-diagnostic questionnaire
4. The Importance of Possessing a SWAT
• Developing a competitive SWAT
• Why it is a company's own failt if its customer are obsessed with price
• The competitive SWAT matrix
• Kwiksave
• Levi Strauss
• McDonald's
• The three routes to possessing a competitive SWAT
• Core competencies
• Identifying the future before it arrives
• Hewlett-Packard printers
• The future of retailing
• Self-diagnostic questionnaire
• Part II: How to Develop a SWAT
5. Alexander the Great — Low-cost SWATs
• The Battle of Issus, 333 BC
• Low-cost leadership as a SWAT
• Cost reduction
• Reduction of costs per unit
• Elimination of costs via restructuring
• Dell Computer
• Direct provision of financial services
• The sky's the limit: the rise of the no-frills airline
• Lexus vs BMW and Mercedes
• Risks of a low-cost strategy
• Harris Queensway
• Self-diagnostic questionnaire
6. The Roman Legion — Differentiated SWATs
• Weaknesses of the Macedonian System
• The perfect fighting machine
• Advantages over the phalanx
• The legion perfected
• The Battle of Carrhae, 53 BC
• Commercial differentiation
• Vision Express
• Snap-On Tools
• Differentiating a commodity: Graniterock
• Weaknesses of a differentiating strategy
• Nike
• The Greyhound bus company
• Self-diagnostic questionnaire
7. The English Longbow — Focused SWATs
• David s Goliath
• The 'discovery' of the longbow
• The Battle of Crecy, 1346
• Focusing on one sector of the markert
• L'eggs
• Scandinavian Air Services
• Fairlines
• Ben Sherman
• Risks of a focus strategy
• Self-diagnostic questionnaire
• Part III: Combat Appreciation: How to Choose the Strategy that Is Right for You

8. The Basic Strategic Options
• Offensive military strategies
• Defensive military strategies
• A succession of strategies: the campaign of Alexander the Great
• Progressing from one strategy to another: guerrilla warfare in Indochina
• Combat appreciations
• Commercial strategic options
• Pursuing more than one strategy
• Self-diagnostic questionnaire
9. Head-to-head Strategies
• Head-to-head combat strategies
• Head-to-head combat strategies: the German invasion of France, 1940
• Head-to-head combat strategies in business
• Selective use of terrain
• Battle of Cannae, 216 BC
• Using terrain to negate a business enemy's size
• McDonald's, Beamish stout and Avis
• Sega vs Nintendo
• Head-to-head logistics strategies
• Using a head-to-head logistics strategy defensively: Napoleon's invasion of Russia, 1812
• Using a head-to-head logistics strategy offensively: the English conquest of Wales
• Head-to-head logistics strategies in business
• Wal-Mart
• Self-diagnostic questionnaire
10. Raiding Strategies
• Using a raiding combat strategy offensively: England in the Hundred Years' War
• Using a raiding combat strategy defensively: Persia vs Rome
• Raiding strategies in business
• Interski
• Telco vs AT&T
• Maxim Integrated Products
• Enterprise Rent-A-Car
• Holiday Autos
• Raiding logistics vs head-to-head combat strategies in the microprocessor market
• Self-diagnostic questionnaire
11. Conclusion

Interesting approach. Worthwhile to read.