The Impossible Advantage

Conventional business strategies tell you that differentiation, the right positioning, and defining your superior edge will turn you into the ‘best player’ in your market – but this is wrong. The Impossible Advantage reveals that success can be achieved by changing the market in which you operate, rather than trying to beat the competition. The authors illustrate that the biggest, most spectacular and groundbreaking business success stories feature companies that make the rules – instead of just following them. The best companies seem to know how to break, change, or reinvent the rules of the market that everyone else follows.

This book:

• Will help you to break through to an entirely new level of thinking: winning the game by changing the rules in your own favour.
• Explains that you don’t need a technological breakthrough, product innovation or a massive marketing budget to change the rules of the competition.
• Shows you that you can become a ′game changer′ and gain a seemingly ‘impossible’ advantage even over far larger competitors, no matter how large your market or how small your segment is.
• Introduces you to four compelling ‘Game Changing Strategies’ that work for managers from any industry or business sector.

For more information on The Impossible Advantage, go to the official website: http://www.impossible-advantage.com

About the Authors ix

Foreword xi

The Surprising Limitation of the World’s Number One Business Strategy 1

Why There Are Limits to the Power of Positioning 1

The Rule Maker’s ‘Impossible’ Advantage 3

Game Changing Strategies Start Where Positioning Stops 4

Six Prejudices to Ignore 5

It’s Time to Think Radically about Growth 7

Someone Committed to Breaking All the Rules 7

Games as a Strategic Model 14

Four Classical Game Strategies 22

Wanted: A ‘Highly Infectious’ Game Changing Idea 26

Our Plea for Free, Open and Radical Thinking 31

First Game Strategy: Redefining the Measures of Performance 35

Influence the Criteria of the ‘Customer Jury’ 38

How to Make Stronger Opponents Play Your Game 42

Attack on an ‘Invincible’ Market Leader 48

Surprising Escape from a Price War 53

How Global Power Players Rule the Game 59

The Essentials in Overview 63

Second Game Strategy: Reshaping the Market Landscape 67

How Market Structures ‘Regulate’ the Competitive Game 68

Balancing Act Between Flop and Global Success 71

Outfoxing a Negative Trend in the Market 77

How to Conquer ‘Impossible’ Market Potential 82

The Law of the Self-Fulfilling Prophecy 89

Change the World with a Radical Idea 93

The Essentials in Overview 98

Third Game Strategy: Restaging the Competitive Confrontation 101

What are ‘Game Patterns’ and How Can You Use Them? 103

‘Staging’ the Competitive Confrontation – Hollywood-Style 108

Lessons Learned from Political Campaigns 115

Breaking Free from a Negative Role Pattern 119

Moving out of the Shadows into the Limelight 125

Turning the Tide of an Almost-Lost Battle 133

The Essentials in Overview 136

Fourth Game Strategy: Taking the Game to the Next Level 139

Taking the Game to the Next Level What Does That Mean? 143

Old ‘Top Dogs’ Can Become Terribly Short Sighted 147

Why It Takes so Little to Control a Category’s Evolution! 151

Courageously Slay the Sacred Cows! 154

Take the Lead When a Value Shift Hits the Market 157

When the Market Needs a Complete Overhaul 162

Radical Visions and Their Pitfalls 167

The Essentials in Overview 169

How Your Business Can Profit From Game Strategy 173

1. Explore the ‘Ideas that Rule the Market’ 174

2. Nothing Can Beat a ‘Game Changing Idea’ 176

3. Game Changers Can Take a Certain Degree of Control in the Market – and over Their Competitors 178

4. Game Strategy as a ‘Behavior Changing’ Instrument 180

5. Finally Game Strategy Is a Truly ‘Democratic’ Tool 183

The Five Steps to Game Strategy 184

It’s Time to Explore Your Own Game Changing Opportunities 192

After the Game 195

Postscript: How Game Strategy Differs From Game Theory 197

Thanks! 201

Index 203

"... reveals that success can be achieved by changing the market in which you operate." (Finance & Management Faculty, March 2009)

Andreas Buchholz, an engineer, and Wolfram Wördemann, a communication specialist, first met at Procter & Gamble in Schwalbach, Germany. After earning their marketing spurs at P&G, they jointly founded the marketing strategy consultancy ‘Buchholz Wördemann Partners’ located in Königstein near Frankfurt am Main. Together with the team they have assembled, BW Partners have served a large number of multinational corporations across Europe and beyond, always with a focus on breakthrough, “out of the box” strategic thinking. Their extensive list of clients includes Amexco, Bayer Schering, IBM Lenovo, Nestlé, Pepsico, Pfizer, Procter & Gamble, Sanofi-Aventis, Siemens, T-Mobile, and World Vision. Andreas and Wolfram co-authored the Financial Times bestseller ‘What Makes Winning Brands Different: The hidden method behind the world’s most successful brands’ (John Wiley & Sons 2000).

Ned Wiley first made a mark in the world of television thirty years ago when, as Procter and Gamble’s first European Brand Manager, he introduced Italian television audiences to the soap opera. His career spans consumer marketing, advertising and interactive digital communications, at firms including Foote, Cone & Belding, Publicis Group and Gist Communications.

Today, Ned is with one of the world’s largest media companies, Axel Springer. As a Managing Director of Axel Springer Digital TV Guide, he is once again working to revolutionize the way advertisers engage consumers by helping consumers navigate the ever-changing landscape of television and video entertainment. Ned is an alumnus of The University of Chicago College and The University of Chicago Booth School of Business.

The competition in the marketplace is a game, no doubt, much like any other game… except for one small, but most significant difference: in the market, some of the players are also the rule makers. From a classic game perspective, these rule makers or Game Changers enjoy nothing less than an ‘impossible advantage’ over the vast majority of their competitors who are happy to simply play along by the rules.

Few managers truly understand the fine art of how to control the intangible and somehow enigmatic ‘laws and rules’ of the competition in the marketplace. And hardly anybody knows about the compelling and proven techniques of how to purposefully change them in their own favour.

The Impossible Advantage reveals some surprising news: how virtually anybody can learn the art of the Game Masters and Game Changers. There are no demanding prerequisites: just get ready to engage in a mind-opening and provocatively different way of thinking.