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?

What they said when India won the cricket series with Australia

The Indian Cricket team  recently scored a brilliant 4-0 win over the highly competitive Australian team. The politicians would probably have this to say about the outcome. Manmohan Singh:  Well ..... Salman Khurshid:  This is Sonia Gandhi's win.... I mean our foreign policy is so amazing that Australia was forced to bow before us. Karunanidhi: Ashwin and Murali Vijay must now beat Sri Lanka in the field to avenge the plight of Tamils. Digvijay Singh: We see the hands of communal forces behind this win as  both Ravindra Jadeja and Cheteshwar Pujara are both Gujaratis. Manish Tiwari: This win is because of the Congress party's policy of favouring the youth. Today's young team is playing much better simply because of Rahul Gandhi. Kapil Sibal: Australia beat India 4-0, India defeated Australia 4-0... Zero Loss theory proved. Mayawati: There are no Dalit players in the Indian team. BCCI is anti Dalit. I demand a 30% reservation for Dalits in the team. Arvind Kejriwal: How is it that the Indian team has begun to win all of a sudden? I will reveal the facts soon in a press conference. Justice Katju: The Australian Board of Cricket must forgive the mistakes of it's team because they are a great team. Also Watson has small children. The Left Parties: This 'Left' (Ravindra Jadeja) is amazing. Mulayam Singh Yadav: My U-turn was used by the Indian spinners very well... by the way the Australian team is an honest and true team. Narendra Modi: The Chai which the Indian team had during the tea session was made from the milk which came from Gujarat. Today Jadeja and Pujara have once again proved that Gujarat has always served India. Mohan Bhagwat: This is a victory for Bharat, not India.  Rahul Gandhi: Heartiest congratulations to the Indian football team for defeating Australia 4-0.

Thanks to Prince Chaudhari for this contribution

May I have your autograph?

It was two years ago when our son Pavit was in Mumbai and dropped in  at the Bharat Petroleum pump on Bandra Linking road to meet his young uncle Amarprit Sawhney (Amar).  They chatted for a while when they were interrupted by one of the employees. The employee was asking for permission to leave to go to the home of one of legendary Indian cricketer Sachin Tendulkar.

Sachin possessed a Ferrari car gifted to him by the Fiat company for Sachin's outstanding performance in one of the tournaments. The vehicle needed special fuel to operate and this was  supplied by the oil giant Bharat Petroleum (BPCL).  Amar's petrol station is well reputed for its excellent service and efficiency, therefore BPCL had requested Amar to personally take care of the select prestigious clients, such as Sachin Tendulkar.

Amar asked Pavit if he would like to meet Mr. Tendulkar.
Which right thinking youngster n India could turn down such an invitation?

They loaded the special fuel into the vehicle and they set off for Sachin's home.
As luck would have it, while the technician did the check up and pumped the fuel, Sachin strolled out from his house.

After exchanging greetings, they began to chat. Pavit recalls how modest and soft spoken the great cricketer was. They chatted about many things and then Pavit asked Sachin "I would have thought you more comfortable in a Mercedes car rather than in the simple cars parked in your driveway."

Sachin responded "We Tendulkars are simple folks, we believe in simple living." I have been presented with many cars icluding 37 Mercedes cars."
Pavit asked "Thirty seven Mercedes cars? How do you manage so many cars? Where do you fit them?"
Sachin replied " I do not  need to fit them. I have gifted them all to friends and relatives. You cannot believe how happy it made them and how much I enjoyed sharing my things with people I love."

He then offered Pavit to sit in the Ferrari. Pavit was ecstatic with the experience.
After a while as Pavit and Amar  were leaving. Pavit could't resist asking Sachin for an autograph. When Sachin saw that Pavit had nothing to take the autograph on he smiled and said "Wait here, I will be right back."
Sachin returned a few minutes later with a note book pulled out a leaf  and autographed it in front of Pavit.

Gushing with excitement at having met such a great and true man. He called us up at home to share the experience.

When he returned home,  he narrated his experience to us in great detail.  I asked to see the autograph. He sheepishly said "I don't have it, I gave it to a friend."
Mohit his elder brother screamed at him " Are you crazy? Why did you do such a daft thing?"

Pavit said " I learnt many things from Sachin Tendulkar in the short time I was able to spend with him. I gave the autograph to my friend Akhil because it would mean so much to him"

It was another day for us to learn so much more about friendship, modesty and greatness.