Who is your competitor?

Who sells the largest number of cameras in India ?
Your guess is likely to be Sony, Canon or Nikon. Answer is none of the above. The winner is Samsung whose main line of business in India is not cameras but cell phones.
Cameras bundled with cellphones are outselling stand alone cameras.

Try this. Who is the biggest in music business in India ? You think it is HMV Sa-Re-Ga-Ma? Sorry. The answer is Airtel. By selling caller tunes (that play for 30 seconds) Airtel makes more than what music companies make by selling music albums (that run for hours).

Incidentally Airtel is not in music business. It is the mobile service provider with the largest subscriber base in India . That sort of competitor is difficult to detect, even more difficult to beat (by the time you have identified him he has already gone past you). But if you imagine that Nokia and Bharti (Airtel's parent) are breathing easy you can't be farther from truth. Nokia confessed that they all but missed the smartphone bus. They admit that Apple's I-Phone and Google's Android can make life difficult in future. But you never thought Google was a mobile company, did you?


These examples illustrate that competition can come from anywhere. This raises the question – "who is my competitor?"

Let's look at a few other examples. What did Apple do to Sony, and Sony did to Kodak? Sony defined its market as audio (music from the walkman). They never expected an IT company like Apple to encroach into their audio domain. Hardly surprising, Apple as a computer maker has both audio and video capabilities.

So also Kodak defined its business as film cameras, Sony defines its businesses as "digital." In digital camera the two markets perfectly meshed. Kodak was torn between going digital and sacrificing money on camera film or staying with films and getting left behind in digital technology. Left undecided it lost in both. It had to. It did not ask the question "who is my competitor for tomorrow?"

The same was true for IBM whose mainframe revenue prevented it from seeing the PC. The same was true of Bill Gates who declared "Internet is a fad!" and then turned around to bundle the browser with windows to bury Netscape. The point is not who is today's competitor. Today's competitor is obvious. Tomorrow's is not.

Tough compteition to Airlines operating in India are increasingly coming not from other airlines but from videoconferencing and telepresence services provided by the likes of HP and Cisco. Travel dropped due to recession. Senior IT executives in India and abroad were compelled by their head quarters to use videoconferencing to shrink travel budget. So much so, that the mad scramble for American visas from Indian techies was nowhere in sight in 2008. ( India had a quota of something like 65,000 visas to the U.S. They were going a-begging. Blame it on recession!). Optimists in the airline business are counting on a rebound post recession. They are right for the short term but will continue to lose business in the longer term. Cost of computers and communication equipment continue to drop whereas cost of air travel will continue to rise.

India has two passions. Films and cricket. The two markets were distinctly different. So were the icons. Earlier cricket was fundamentally "test cricket" or at best "50 over one day cricket". Then came IPL ( Indian Premier League) and the two markets converge into one. IPL brought cricket down to 20 overs. Suddenly an IPL match was reduced to the length of a 3 hour movie. Cricket became film's competitor. On the eve of IPL matches movie halls ran empty. Desperate cinema hall and multiplex owners requisitioned the rights for screening IPL matches at movie halls to hang on to the audience. If IPL were to become the mainstay of cricket, as it is likely to be, films have to sequence their releases so as not clash with IPL matches. As far as the audience is concerned both are what in India are called 3 hour "tamasha" (entertainment). Cricket season is already giving films a hard time.


This post is a modified and reproduced from an article originally written by Dr. YLR. Moorthi who is a professor at the Indian Institute of Management Bangalore.

To sum it up, people and organisations need to ask themselves the questions

1. How do I define my business?
2. Who is my competitor?

Do not want to curse God.

Optimism, education, reasonable intelligence and hard work does not mean that problems do not come calling. A time came with disastrous consequences for me, when I lost almost everything. 

I took stock of my situation and concluded that I was financially broke but I was not poor. I was wealthy, for I had knowledge, experience, a friend in my loving wife, and a deep faith in God.  
Well there is only one thing to do, start rebuilding life afresh so I left India for Dubai. Almost everyone in Dubai has a story of problems, challenges, and sorrow behind them. It is a land of opportunity, like a beautiful woman but with a stone for a heart. 

I am a happy-go lucky type of person, therefore it's relatively easy for me to get along with people, at least for a while.  My extrovert nature helped me meet and interact with a lot of people and I was soon busy, though not always productively or profitably.

My bank manager Kannan and I soon became friends. I sought Kannan's advice on many things and he was more than ready to lend me his ear and offer advice and suggestions whenever he could spare the time.
Once Kannan introduced me to another client of the bank, believing that there were good business opportunities between both of his clients.
As things turned out the opportunity existed and we did do some business together. The volume of business was not much, but it was fairly profitable for the time and money involved.

I was living all by myself at that time and I longed to share my joy with someone. In addition I was happy and grateful, and I so wanted to show my appreciation to Kannan.
After much thought I decided to give him cash. So I put some cash (10% of the profit) in an envelope and I went to the bank.

Kannan and we chatted over tea for some time in his cabin. After I had finished my cup of tea, I placed the envelope in front of him.
Kannan raised his eyebrow and without touching the package asked me "What is this?"

I said, 'Thanks to your introduction I made some money and I wanted to share a little something with you."
He picked up the packet peeked into the contents and pushed it back to me; " I am sorry I can't take it. I only did my duty to assist my customers. I have grown fond of you, I wanted this to be an act of friendship. Do not spoil it by giving me anything especially money."

Kannan said, 
"Let me share something with you. Every day I pray.  
"God, do not deprive me and give me so little, that I curse you. I also beg you not to give me so much that I forget you."

He said that God seemed to hear and answer his prayers. He wished for nothing more.
Back and forth we pushed the envelope with the money. Finally he relented and put the envelope in his drawer.

A few days later I went to the bank for some work. As usual I went to meet Kannan. We chatted for a few minutes and then he asked me, "Have you checked your bank statement?"
"No" I replied.

Kannan said, "You insisted on giving me the money and I was unable to convince you, so I took the money you gave me and I deposited the money back into your account."
"Please do not do anything silly and come around with another packet, now or ever. My joy comes from doing good for you"

I felt blessed to meet so noble and wonderful man.

He was soon thereafter transferred to another branch rather far away and we lost touch. I tried to contact him for a long time, but learnt that he had taken up a job somewhere else. I pray that I meet him again sometime soon.