Should business aims to be the best, or just average?
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Nearly every business wants to be the best in something because being the best gives you certain privileges that only the best can get. You can charge more expensive than your competitors, spend more money on research, being selective on your customers, having less promotions and sales (which minimize profit), etc. Those are the privileges if and only if you are the best.
If you’re not, sorry to say, those privileges will not be available to you but to your competitor who is the best in your industry.
And that is exactly why there are a lot of businesses out there which want to be the best. There’s even a saying which goes like “if you can’t be the best in that field, choose another field”. Forgot where I’ve seen it though.
The thing is, it does require a lot of efforts and possibly money to get to the top and be the best. As a business, you need a remarkable product with unique features. Something like Apple IPhone or Nintendo WII. They can be considered as the pioneers in their respective industry. That’s why these 2 products are so popular. But how many such products actually managed to make it to the top? Definitely not Microsoft with their big failures such as Microsoft Zune and Microsoft Vista. Oh, by the way, Sony’s PlayStation 3 is a very big risk too because of the amount of money Sony has put into its research. If PS3 fails to sell well, Sony Entertainment might have to be closed down.
Yes, it is THAT risky.
So do you still want to be the best? After all, being average does not mean your business cannot earn. You can still earn. Notice how many clones are there for all the famous products? Those are average products, not the actual stuff. For example, just go to Kajang and find the famous satay. You will end up finding a lot of Satay Kajang without knowing which is the original. But those who know which is the best, they will still go to the best. The average ones will only have customers if the best is fully occupied.
That’s the path of an average business. You can still earn with lower risks, but don’t expect to earn big bucks.
So which do you think is suitable for you and your business? The very risky but rewarding path, or the less risky and average path?
Last but not least…a reminder to you. Always ask yourselves this question “Why would people still buy from me when my product is actually not the best? Is it more affordable than the rest? Or does it has more features?”
In the competitive world of brands, you only survive by being best or second-best. There is no third-best. Do an experiment. Best cola? Coke. 2nd best? Pepsi. 3rd-best? Who knows & who cares. Now try it with pizza, notebook pc’s, Japanese cars, cellphone brands, anything. You’ll arrive at the same conclusion. It means if you are worse than 2nd, you’re probably better off doing something else because you’ve failed to build any preference for you. Yes you can still make some money being an insignificant 12th and its ok if the objective is to make enough to pay the bills but if its to be the top earner, then you’ll find the rules are quite different.
Ah, of cause the best of all. Most importantly the best you could strive for.
to be the best in any fields, need lot of fund in r&d (technology products)…but then if tht particular company cant be the best or doesn’t hv the competitive advantage to gain the pioneering path, why not they look for other competences to compete with the available competitors, they still can take other advantages, like cost advantage, logistic, supple chain management bla bla… agree?
@ Damien
That’s why Jack Welch used to say that GE’s businesses should either be the best or the second best in their respective industries…..otherwise, just close them down. But being the best in a certain industry, can be quite subjective. You can be the best in an industry or a market where there’s no people interested in buying fr u
@ Harmony
But a business does need to pay in order to be the best
How much are you willing to pay for the price then?
@ little jennifer
True. In fact, most businesses are doing that because it does cost a lot to go for the r & d direction. So they prefer to take the existing products, slash the price, lower the cost…and fight for a place in the market.
Thus, the price war.
thts y, price war is so popular in the town…
@ little jennifer
which is good for the consumers
yet, it’s bad for the companies…hahah…