Beating the competition isn’t just a matter of possessing more manpower and / or resources.  A host of ponderables impinges on the equation to decide the winner, but it is the organization’s front-line viz.  Marketing and sales team that has to collate existing data, weigh market situation / dynamics, define the most optimal solution and accordingly chart the eventual campaign i.e. victory path.

The car retailer, feverishly indenting the new model on a weekly basis, barely grudges the fatigue (buyers flocking in to avail innovative schemes offered) since dealership is raking in the moolah.  The cinema hall manager is all chuckles when premiere of the latest film release is packed to capacity and every show stands fully booked a fortnight in advance (thanks largely to a novel promotional effort).  The time frame characterizing heavy industrial equipment is, naturally, somewhat long term and the sales chief is doing a great job (effective exponent of ‘Customer Relationship Management’ that he is) if the order book consistently extends beyond the manufacturing cycle period.  Each of these instances highlights the pivotal role of the Marketing and Sales (M&S) wing in keeping the cash registers jingling.

Compare the objectives of a battalion commander and a sales chief: one marches on field to decimate the enemy, other enters marketplace to outsell the competition. It could be said former engages in brutality of war and latter launches into peacetime version of the same, inflicting a not so fatal blow!

Fill Up the Data Bank
Having decided to set up shop, the next step is to choose the product or service, even identifying segment / target audience, that would occupy centre stage in the proposed venture.  (At this initial phase itself, ambition presumably resides to implement wider participation that encompasses associated product / services, so that a more complete menu can be served from under one roof.  In this range of operations there could be a variety of entrants e.g. – toy maker concentrating on outlandish, robotic creations; garment exporter of ready made apparel for especially the teenage crowd; hotelier exploiting tourist locales to cater exclusively to ‘budget minded’ travellers; in the array of electricity meters, an industrialist singling out the electronic type.

The exercise must then proceed to ascertain – figures pertaining to installed capacity vs. total annual demand and, consequently, what portion is being met or is it a case of under-utilization; number of players in this quadrant, their individual production and market share; salient features of product marketed by rivals and there from determine extent of customer preferences remaining unattended, etc. (one school of thought, however, might advocate addressing subject the other way around viz. first carry out study/analysis and then select line of business to embark upon).

Journals and publications put out by professional bodies contain a wealth of information; statistics etc. and habitual perusing will yield useful bits of store in the data bank.

Size up the Environment  
Foraying into a market where demand outstrips supply means business will not have to struggle to get accommodate, thus surmounting preliminary hurdle of gaining a foothold. Scan the list of competitors and, estimating one’s own strength/current potential, zero-in on the band deemed as serious rivals whom you wish to dislodge so that your company’s arrival is noticed soon enough.  As initial years go by, aspiration will, naturally, be to consolidate position held/secure an even higher ranking.

Gather as much information about peer group viz. their product range, collaborations if any, in-house testing facilities, price levels, delivery period, client profile, whether enjoying specific geographical dominance, sale method (direct and/or distribution network), terms of payment being quoted, market feedback about general complaints/major failure or grievance as regards product performance/company policy, warranty conditions, services offered (i.e. erection, commissioning, after sales) etc. Learning of their expansion plans and future activity (diversification/takeover, public issue of shares and the like) is equally important as an intelligence input.  And outside the industry there must be effort to know and keep abreast of government policy on sanctioning projects, import/export regulations applicable to finished goods/components, project evaluation criteria, international funding practices, environmental protection laws, etc. 

Devise the Game Plan
With respect to a new product particularly, timing of launch is critical, which explains why toy makers capitalize on the X’mas  - New Year festivities when buying spree is at its speak.  A similar strategy underlies the hotel industry’s frenzied activity during summer months, coinciding with mass exodus to the hills.  Rather than governed by seasonal swings like aforementioned, a public mood/event oriented/worldwide movement could well trigger the industrial goods manufacturing; witness the upsurge in airport / aeroplane safety gadgets (anti-terrorist step to reassure a scared public), computer wizardry gizmos (to be unveiled at an international trade fair), non-polluting modes of transportation (towards conserving protecting the greenery – nations have put this high on their agenda), etc.

In pursuit of their goals, business houses resort to different manoeuvres –

Training their sights on a huge, bulk quantity contract to be awarded few months hence, one company deliberately bid casual prices (not that bloated though to expose the tactic) in preceding tenders, only to insert an unsuspected low rate in the big case to emerge winner.  Bare margins were perforce adopted, but compensation was provided through high volume of sales.  Besides, additional respite was obtained in the scope of spares and services, which incorporated liberal pricing.

At times strategy (or call it exploitation of opportunity) evolves from a circumstantial origin like when a breakdown occurred at an extremely old cement factory, which then needed a heavy-duty circuit breaker on an emergency basis.  Getting knowledge that existing equipment had outlived normal life span; this company quickly seized the prospect of supplying afresh the entire lot.  So they diverted one from the assembly line to client as straightaway replacement, simultaneously cautioning recent failure could strike suddenly again.  This company’s amazing speed of response to restart the plant with minimum down – time so impressed client that, he needed scant persuasion to place a large scale repeat order.  

Inadequate shop load staring at the very successive quarter would upset any management.  Ever alert to derive mileage from a seemingly hopeless fix, M&S touted this available capacity to a ‘speed-is-the-essence’ client.  Problem at either side (affected output and quick delivery) got addressed and both parties benefited from the ensuing deal! 

There are several firms making power transformers, switchgear, instrument transformers and capacitors – all of these State Electricity Boards (SEBs) buy as loose equipment.  Thereafter, umpteen other purchases have still to be made before a substation  (S/S) can be built.  These separate Purchase Orders entail wearisome, coordinated and time-consuming procedures that are oft repeated during the course of a year.  Perceiving SEB-staff would welcome relief from this drudgery plus find even greater appeal in the transfer of responsibility (because now contractor became answerable both for satisfactory working of S/S as an integrated whole and its timely commissioning).  One company put together a fully complete S/S (Complementing their own manufactured products with bought-out items) as a package proposal.  This idea not only stole a march over competitors but chalked up unprecedented sales value in single contract of such nature.  Utilizing their superior technical expertise and employing a similar ‘total project’ approach they pioneered Compensation Schemes, again reaping handsome profit in an almost unchallenged market.  Lack of funds is a handicap faced by private industrialist and government agencies alike; an imaginative company converted that threat into an opportunity for themselves by including a ‘project financing’ clause thus bagging more contracts than in the normal run.  Moreover, introducing project concept of business led to a market jump in turnover, a figure trade circles reckon as leading parameter while assigning rank to corporations.

Since inflation exaggerates financial results, certain companies apply the requisite correction factor, in an internal evaluation, to arrive at a realistic performance index.  Some other companies, again, adopt count of physical units as a second yardstick that throws up an equally sound indicator.  Reduction in material sprocurement, lesser man-hours utilized, lower power consumption etc. (in the context of equivalent production), is yet another measurement of operation efficiency that impacts advantageously on the balance sheet.  It is when such calculations too show growth/desired trend, the truly business centric entrepreneur derives extra satisfaction.

For corporations, fending cut-throat competition, maximizing the period work-force stays content, maintaining a healthy bottom line and ensuring their stock                 prices occupy the top bracket in national listings, pose constant concerns.  Employees, primarily intent on retaining their job, shift stance that indiscernibly transforms into jostling for rank in the rat race, and driven by tantalizing rewards dangled against escalating levels of performance, have to cope with tremendous strain practically throughout.  The combined toll of such onslaught tends to induce sharp/unprincipled practices that digress from propriety in the conduct of business and acknowledged personal behaviour.  But in all this gamesmanship of sacrificed values, those (co. and/or individual) abiding by ethical standards are unhesitatingly admired, not a whit biased the status is runners-up may be.

Vanguard of company on the commercial front, M &S wing is the window at which customer establishes contact.  All in this office, therefore are well steeped in the aphorism ‘You do not get a second chance to make a first impression’, and exert to cultivate so satisfied a customer, that he turns out an unsolicited spokesman on behalf of the company. Being in a unique position vis-à-vis customer (and external world in general), requires them to be adept at building relationships, a role that invariably over-arches to becoming a repository of their trust and doubling as ambassadors of corporate reputation.  Apart from the onus to fill order book to capacity (fetching a remunerative price), enlarge client base, spot what is catching customer fancy and visualize market scenario of the future, theirs is the demanding task to create revenue – the very life blood of a business enterprise.