Beware of Competition: It May Come from Any Direction...!

By Joy Castelino, Moodubelle
Bellevision Media Network

Dubai, 01 July 2010: We are usually careful of our competitors. The competitor need not be our enemy. He may be our own friend, relative or any one whom we know very well. However, we are always careful to see whether we face any danger from him and are always suspicious of his intention or moves. We are inquisitive to know as to what type of work they do, where they go and whom they meet, etc.

Competition is an inherent instinct among human beings. In business and industry competition is an inevitable factor. There are a number of companies which are specially established to monitor market trends. These specialised companies find out the response of the consumers to products and services and submit their findings to the business houses and corporations who hire these companies to carry on this kind of work. Trend monitoring companies have themselves have become multi-million dollar companies.

In recent times the task of these trend monitoring companies is not to keep an eye on industrial or business competition but to find out from where the competition arises. Dr. YRL Moorthy, Professor of Indian Institute of Management in Bangalore has written an eye opening article about the competition in various fields and from where such competitions come from.

According to Dr. Moorthy, competition to established brands has been coming from unexpected quarters. For example, the popular camera brands are Sony, Canon, Nickon and Kodak. However, the competition for these established brands of cameras comes not from another camera company but from Nokia. However, the chief business of Nokia is not selling cameras but cell phone hand-sets which have embedded cameras.

In recent times there are a number of companies that have been bringing out cell phones with embedded high precision cameras. The interesting question is, if this trend continues how long the established brands of cameras will survive in the market?

If we take another example, HMV has been a premier music company for long. But since recent times Air tel is doing more business by selling 30 seconds caller tune music than the established music company dealing exclusively with music. However, the chief business of Air tel is communication.

Some years ago Walkman had been a portable music system and Sony Walkman practically had the monopoly in the market over this portable music system. However, stiff competition to this company came not from   a rival audio company but from the IT giant Apple which came up with I-Pod, a music box which could be held in a fist. This new wonder music system practically drove out walkman from the audio market.

Coming to another field, the established big budget airlines got tough competition not from low budget airlines, but by the Video Conferencing system which does not require people to meet at a particular place in a particular city of a particular country. During the last two years of recession, as most of the companies resorted to cost cutting, they discouraged travel to other cities or countries for meetings and conferences and instead resorted to Video Conferencing. This resulted in less people travelling in luxurious airlines which led to bad times for the airlines.

In India, cinema and cricket have been great entertainers. However, with the advent of IPL Cricket Tournament the cinema business has been greatly affected during the IPL season. With three and half hours of excitement on TV channels, people prefer to watch IPL matches rather than venturing out to cinema halls to watch movies. Some of the cinema halls have practically joined the race as they could not beat the trend by relaying the IPL matches on their big screens and attracting the audience and doing business.

The other changes that have become common are that computers have replaced type writers, mobile phones have made watches redundant as they can be used to see the time and also as alarm clocks.

These above examples show that competition in business need not come from a similar company. The competition may come from quite an unexpected quarter. It is not known what kind of changes may come in which field and at what time. In view of these factors the industries and business houses including common people should be prepared in advance to face these competitions and changes.