Business is War

It is not very uncommon when business is compared with war. Even the famous quote, “Everything is fair in love and war” has many a times been modified to “Everything is fair in love, war and business.” But the question still remains. Is business really war or has it been termed as one by people who wanted to justify their unfair practices.

For me the phrase Business is war has been all about the attitude they share. Yes business is war, but only metaphorically. Business is like war when it comes to passion about business, the commitment towards your organization, giving your best to your organization etc. It is war in the sense that you defend your market share, you attack your competitor’s market share. You formulate your long term strategy, and yet there are those short term tactics. Both business and war are about planning and yet require that skill of improvisation when out there in the field. Both require that art of resourcefulness and create maximum by using minimum. The importance of team work and discipline continues to be an important part in both. No wonder, many management schools include military defense and attack strategies in their course outline to explain the concepts. Not only this, many military personnel also attend short term courses in management. But this is it. Business is similar to war but it is not war. The problem arises when this thin line of similarity dissolves to give way to equivalence.

Business houses fail to realize that unlike war, co-existence in business market is possible. While in a war one must win to end the war, the same in not true in the business scenario. Co-existence in business is no longer a theoretical concept and this has been proved by many business houses in the past. Higher profits are possible with co-ordination rather than competition. Many companies have dug their own graves with the excessive competition and led to decline of a industry as a whole.

The best example of co-ordination is that of Pepsi and Coca-Cola at the time of pesticide issue. All of a sudden the negative advertisement about each other stopped and positive advertisement about the cola industry as a whole started. Yes, the cola industry. There was no Pepsi, no Coca Cola. The focus was on saving the industry and they succeeded. Similarly there have been many rivals who have joined hands in the past to save the industry. Such co-operation is a big reason that Japanese car manufacturers have dominated the world automobile market for so long. Despite such instances of co-operation, majority of the business houses aim to grow at the expense of others which has been a cause for concern for many industries.

So it is essential, in this era of low margin of error, that the companies realize that the significance of war in business is only limited and co-ordination forms an important part of it.

Why fight and make each other fall when we can join hands and rise together.