SUN TZU ART OF WAR INTRODUCTION SERIES(PART 4)
This week, we will discuss and add a bit more to the first article I wrote in the Sun Tzu Art of War, regarding the five fundamentals devised by Sun Tzu, which were important considerations when waging war against another country. The five fundamentals, as I have previously discussed before were the way( dao); the second, heaven( tian); the third, earth(di); the fourth, command( jiang); and the fifth, rules and regulations( fa).
To complement the five fundamentals, Sun Tzu also said in his Art of War in article 18, was “If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.”
To simply put, know your weaknesses and stengths, and also know your competitor’s strengths and weaknesses. If you know only your own strength and weakness, then you are going to have problems with succeeding in your business. If you don’t know anything about yourself, or your enemy, then just give up. You have handed your victory to the competitor.
I know there are a lot of readers, who are going to say that they already know this, and that it’s a waste of time regurgitating what is the obvious, but I know a lot of businesses that have failed because they have underestimated the importance of this saying. Just because some business person tells me that they are going to make an online store exporting pet food doesn’t make it a winner. There is a lot of competition out there, and you have to know what your competitor’s strenght and weakness lies in, as well as your own.
To further make my point, I have a story in which a start-up once told me when he wanted help in financing funding for his business. He told me that he was going to make a little restaurant making beef brisket with noodles. I asked him what was his strenght, and why beef brisket and noodles, and what about his competition. He simply stated that he just thought it was going to make money because he saw people making a fortune from it.
Business is War, and there is no second place. If one does not take the time to know your enemy, your competition, how are you going to devise strategy to defeat him? If one does not know one’s own strengths and weaknesses, how is one going to consider whether to even be in that particular business market? So please readers, kindly consider what I have to say.
APPLICABILITY-SUSHI EXPRESS
To further clarify what article 18 has to say, consider Sushi Express. Nowadays, obviously, there are a lot of sushi restaurants with their price ranging from affordable to incredibly maxing out your credit card. With so much competition, how can a restaurant differentiate itself from the rest? Sushi Express has a little store inside a mall, where it has no washrooms or fancy interior design. Basicaly in other words, it is not a restaurant. It just has enough space for 10-30 people sitting beside each other, with the conveyor belts carrying sushi around where they are sitting, and a small sushi kitchen. The staff only consists of 3 people. The price of their sushi though, is very affordable. ALL dishes are only 6 yuan each. As a result, this restaurant is successful, with a steady number of customers, coming at every hour until it closed.
This restaurant was smart, because they were competing with the other sushi restaurants through price. They examinined what they had to offer, and evaluated its financial strength and weaknesses. It did not waste financial resources in making elaborate interior designs, and renting a big space in a small, and only a minium of 3 persons were able to maintain the operations of the restaurant. By conserving their financial resources, they made sure they could get costs to a minimum, and ensure customers would have sushi at their cut-throat price of 6 yuan only.
In conclusion, please kindly do not underestimate what Sun Tzu said in terms of knowing yourself and your competitor. It is through this, that the chances of you being truly able to compete in your respective businesses, and emerge the victor will be greatly enhanced.
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