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Posted at: Wed Mar 10 03:47:37 2004 (GMT)

   > Discuss this issue with other Syvum members in this forum.  Feel free to
   > post your own points or your essays here for the benefit of others, or to
   > receive feedback.
   
   Hi All,
   
    Just like its inevitable to breath for living, competition is important for
   businesses to excel in todays global arena.
       I would like to share a little history of events that took place in
   defining todays economic condition of this world. It has been viewed in the
   past that world economy took two seperate ways one favouring free markets
   mostly suported by capitalists, and other favouring closed economy which was
   popular among developing countries or in countries favoring communism. 
   
   From the history also it is evident that free markets, where competition is
   the basic of any business have taken a huge lead over closed market.
   Competition not only helps consumers to get better products but also keep
   the industries that are competing to get maximum market share on their toes.
   Its beneficial to both customers and producers, customers get better quality
   products and producers daily invent new ways to reduce costs, increase
   quality and innovate new prducts to increase market share. Even lot of new
   products or range of products are launched by innovative producers to match
   the requirments of customers or even innovate a new product completely 
   unknown previously like sauna belt.	Which makes industries to be more
   innovative and attentive to market changes. Survival of the fittest is the
   Mantra of today as more and more countries are opening up their frontier for
   free trade. 
   
   I would like to share example of Indian automobile industry here. In 1980's
   there were only one major car manufacturer and one scooter(two wheeler)
   manufacturer before india opened up its markets for free trade or
   competitive markets where number of units to be produced and the end price
   of the product was decided on the market condition unlike earlier.
   Competition among manufacturers not only increased the quality of product
   but it also increas the market base and create new segments all together.
   That directly increased the profit for manufacturers, here there may be lot
   of other factors which can help in improving the sales. After competition
   was instilled by foreign manufacturers Indian manufacturer also started
   using best practices and started implimenting them for example JIT which
   reduces inventory level and reduces overall cost of the product. This also
   increased the quality and new improved versions of vehicle were also
   launched. Meanwhile competition was also good for foreign manufacturers who
   learned the best local practices to cut down there costs and in few cases
   local vendors were promoted to global levels by these big MNC's. For example
   sundram clayton which produces fastners for automobiles won a major contract
   for producing lids for Daimleyr Chrysler.
   Moreover now a days competition is taking place on global level which gives
   business from different nations to compete may be in a completely alien land
   to both the competing parties. This gives edge to the business which have
   faced competition earlier and had developed learning habits among its
   employees.
   In the end I would like to mention the simple example of an athlete who
   regulrly updates him to win the race. I wonder if there were no one to
   compete him why he would have upgraded him. Its only competition which keeps
   the importance of winning and it holds true for todays businesses also which
   compete globally to win its customers.

Posted at: Mon Aug 28 09:52:03 2006 (GMT)

   It's a universal truth that the competition can bring changes to the market
   capitalization and innovation. It compels the market players to look for
   more targets and profit maximization which can avoid the monopoly. For
   example the beauty peagent like Miss World, Miss Universe, etc. Prior to
   1994 the rate of wining titles was almost negligible for India but in 1994,
   both Miss Universe (Shushmita Sen) and Miss World (Aishwarya Rai) won the
   titles and this set a chain reaction for India. The impact of such peagent
   shows can be analysed by looking at the Cosmetic market in India. Prior to
   1994 there were a few cosmetic brands in India like Lakme, Ponds, etc but
   after this India's cosmetic market was flooded with many global players like
   Loreol, Garnier. These players garnered the huge potential by launching
   different products and services for Indian customers.
   
   Competition not only boost the innovation but also it derives the demand and
   price control. For example, in India the detergent brands like Tide, Surf
   Excel, Ariel were in dominant position and their detergent product were
   almost at the same cost of about Rs 55 ($1.2)per 500 gm but in 2004 the
   prices droped to almost Rs. 24 ($ 0.6) per 500gm and still the companies
   were earning huge pofits, good advertisements were as usual. So, all these
   players did some cost cuttings in manufacturing, schemes to compete with
   each other.
   
   Competition also led to Mergers & Acquisitions like the recent Mittal Steel
   and Arcelor merger. This made the Mittal Steel having a strong global
   presence , better utilization of resources and made huge profits. Another is
   of Indian Airlines and Air India merger into Indian airlines. This helped it
   in reducing costs, better resource management, huge profits to shareholders
   and reducing the losses to both of them. For example, for a flight from city
   A to city B both career had flights and if the passenger traffic was less
   then the post per flight would be more and this led to losses. But now the
   pessenger traffic can be handled better for same destinations.
   
   But, competition can also led to dissolving of some domestic key players.
   For example, because of the opening of mega retail chains and shopping
   malls, SMEs are running in huge losses and also it is causing accessbility
   problems to the customers. These retail chains are at the outskirts of the
   city which is causing the accessbility problems, traffic congestions, etc.
   Shops at the street corner are also loosing business because of cheaper
   products and services provided by these mege retail outlets. Also, large
   plots of land is required and instead of using that land for agricultural
   use these are alloted to the big corporations for the setup.These areas are
   getting littered with the wastes from these outlets wich led to water and
   land pollution. If the land is used for agricultural usage then the import
   of food grains will reduce. Another example is in fabrics industry. Domestic
   brands in India like DCM, Bhilwara (India brand), Grasim, etc were dominat
   in the 1990s but because of stiff competition and better fabric with more
   designer looks and latest trends these brands are almost vanished from
   Indian market.
   
   In the end I want to say that Cometition is a must for quixotic players for
   their monoply and better services to the customer.

Posted at: Mon Nov 20 09:34:44 2006 (GMT)

   Issue Topic 3. Competition is invariably advantageous to a business because
   it compels changes to improve established methods.
   
   
   I agree with the statement above that competition is advantageous to the
   business.
   
   Competition can be of two different nature i.e. internal competition in
   business and external competition. Both are more or less interlinked but
   actually they are quite different.
   
   In case of internal competition, business gets person who can bring
   innovation to the established methods. Methods can be from the broad
   spectrum of topics starting from the production line to Human resource
   practice and the list is endless. Challenge lies every where and a bright
   and competitive brain can challenge the existing practices to bring in
   innovative ideas which in turn slowly percolate down to the market space
   which enhance the competitive aspect of the company. For an example, with
   proper HR policies, company can attract the best and brightest, then give
   them a challenging and rewarding career. In turn, these bright people
   deliver product, methodology and strategy, those are cutting-edge. This
   enables the company to compete with its peers in the market effectively.
   
   External competition is directly with the peers in the market space.
   Everybody strives for cheaper, more efficient product. To achieve this
   companies adapt innovative methods to cut the cost and deliver effectively.
   Slowly over the past centuries we have seen, companies are getting slimmer
   and smarter. ‘Consumer is the king’ is more evident now, than it has
   been anytime in past. Competition is getting global in nature and to survive
   companies need to re-engineer the methods. Change is the only thing that is
   constant in market. The bottom line is, change and survive or perish.
   
   Most striking example is low-cost air carriers in market. In every continent
   these airlines are giving a fight to the business of their big and
   established peers. There is always a segment in the market which is not
   properly served or dissatisfied with the current process. The key to capture
   market is to give service to this segment and this is precisely what these
   low-cost carriers did. Rather than employing costly methods low cost
   airlines have ripped apart the established methods of handing the way things
   work. Now more people are traveling at a fraction of cost of that the normal
   airlines charge. This has helped the market enormously. As the loss piling
   up at big airlines, we can see many innovations in offing and at the end of
   the day, it’s the market which has benefited. All these are the result of
   competition.
   
   Again to summarize, competition has enormous advantage to the business as
   they start fight for the same pie with others. The end result is better
   product at cheaper price.

Posted at: Sun Jul 22 01:12:58 2007 (GMT)