Co-opportunity knocks

To succeed in the constantly evolving business realm, companies must shift their strategic focus from competitive advantage to constant collaboration.

- RICHARD M ROTHMAN, AUTHOR, THE POWER OF OPPORTUNITY

Since the publication of Michael Porter’s seminal work Competitive Strategy in 1980, the primary filter for defining market opportunities has been competitive advantage. Popular strategy frameworks such as Porter’s Generic Strategies recommend that opportunities be identified and assessed primarily through the filter of countering competitive threats.

For example, Blue Ocean Strategy advises companies to only contest markets in which there are no existing competitors or customers. Clayton Christenson’s Disruptive Innovation Model advises companies to create innovations that are cheaper, simpler, and/or more convenient versions of what competitors already offer.

Who cares if you are different?

Strategy models that define opportunities primarily through the filter of competitive advantage lead companies to define their market opportunities largely in terms of how they can be different from competitors. But the people who pay you—your customers—do not give a hoot whether you are different from your competitors. They only want you to provide them with increasingly relevant and useful services, delivered through a fair value exchange.

From a common sense perspective, it is fairly obvious that your competitors are among the least important people in your world. Do your competitors buy anything from you? Do they fund your company? Do they work directly for you and build your business? Do competitors drive your growth? Of course not. So why make them the point of prime focus?

Imagine that you are an individual, not a business, and you are entering the job market. Where should you focus first? How much would an aspiring career-seeker need to focus on his or her competition? Obviously, not much—or not at all.

Competitors are a consequence, not a cause