7 Tactics to Outsmart the Competition

This article is greatly influenced by Richard D'Aveni's 7S framework where he proposes the tactics for firms to gain temporary advantages in the marketplace to stay ahead of the competition, highlighting the velocity of competitiveness and change experienced by businesses in today's day and age.

As this blog takes inspiration from management theories and business practices to suggest ways to develop oneself personally, the approaches suggested by D'Aveni (in brackets) will be reflected here as personal traits to gain a competitive advantage to beat the competition.

1. Connections (Stakeholder Satisfaction)

While keeping stakeholders satisfied is an ultimate goal for any business, maintaining a healthy relationship with your connections and adding value to it by networking further should the goal for every person out there competing to achieve growth. This will result in great opportunities for personal and professional growth, giving you a head-start in any field, as businesses and projects are run by people with whom you would ideally want to connect with!

2. Reputation (Strategic Soothsaying)

It's important to build a strong reputation and be popular for what you do best, by communicating your personal brand to the targeted audience while ensuring the positive word about your performance is fluid enough to reach potential clients. Optimize what you say!

3. Action (Speed)

Personal flexibility and adaptability to develop new skills, outside your comfort zone, with the urgency of taking action can boost personal confidence and capability to outsmart the competition. There might be failures, but if you fail fast enough, you'll succeed quick as well. Just do it!

4. Lead (Surprise)

Don't be scared to take up an approach out of the norm, while 'stability' may appear to be a desired state, it's counter-productive in competitive environments. Therefore, instead of following the crowd, take a direction where you're able to lead from the front. Embrace instability and make the most of it!

5. Innovate (Shifting the rules)

This approach is by far the most effective, where innovation can change the way things are done within your field, leaving the competition confused. Always find newer and better ways of doing things and create disruption to influence a response from the competitor!

6. Broadcast (Signalling) 

You may have the best qualifications and extensive experiences in your chosen field, but if it's not being promoted within your competitive circle, you're losing out on potential opportunities by not maximizing your competitive advantage. Be bold and be seen!

7. Multi-skilling (Simultaneous and sequential strategic thrusts)

Planning to sustain your competitive advantage for a longer term would need strategic thinking into diversifying your skills and competencies in more than one area. Not only will it enable you to generate a secondary income stream and stay one step ahead of the competition, but it'll also provide a contingency plan and position you to surprise the competitors.

These initiatives are assumed to provide only temporary unsustainable competitive advantages due to competitor's habit of catching up quickly with best practice in today's hyper competitive markets. However a series of temporary competitive advantages will provide momentum to sustain a competitive edge and enable you to be the smartest person in the room.

This is +Nauman Wasif ... Tell me what you think!