upepo
Elder Lister
Dealing with Incumbents in Business
Incumbents are the behemoths who take the best pieces, drink the clearest water, and breathe the cleanest air. What are your options as an underdog?
- Hang around and wait for them to make a costly mistake, a mistake that will drive the market in your direction. A good example here would be yahoo mail vs gmail. The former had a head start and a strong grip on the email market. That is until a bunch of new executives decided they were god enough to bully all other mortals. With heavy reluctance, the market gradually gravitated towards gmail, which is now the choice provider for most users.
- You can wait for something bad to happen to the leader, something like bankruptcy, a scandal or any such thing that would disrupt the business. A good example here would be Kenyanlist original vs Ktalk original. For a long time, Ktalk original was inhabited by just one soul (I think his name was Ben), with the occasional visits by rebels expelled from Kenyanlist. We all thought the Ben character was crazy, but it seems he had a solid strategy at play. His star lit up instantly with the death of Kenyanlist.
- You may also forcefully displace the incumbent through effort and hard work. This can be a daunting task, but that does not mean it is unachievable. Toyota was a laughable car in the 60s and 70s. Through raw effort and hard work, they displaced many Western car makers who had ruled the market as far back as the beginning of motoring history.
- You could wait for the incumbent to be taken out by time or old age. The danger here is that you could be too tired by the time the competition is extinguished. The Windows vs Unix rivalry would be a good example. For many decades, Windows was the undisputed leader in device software. It was so much entrenched that even better and free products from rivals could not uproot it. Then the smartphone era arrived and Windows was left behind. It was overtaken by time – it failed to keep a close eye on trends because it did not need to. Today, the digital world runs on Android, a progeny of Unix.
- Get used to life as an underdog. The one good thing about accepting the underdog status is that you always go to bed with no worries about someone overtaking you while you slumber.
