The Sun Zi's Art of War that even the Experts may not know #1

The Art of War Winners' mindset help us to understand the rise and fall of nations and also of corporations. It can be the guide for us to build successful businesses. Here is a series of stories of the Smart-phone wars that explained the successes of Apple and Androids and the failures of Nokia-Microsoft phones.

I have shared a few posts on Sun Zi's Art of War on my FaceBook. It may be better to share in on my blog for reachig a wider audience. The blog also provide better search capability.

Here is the first one of a series:

What is Competition?
Sun Zi: It is about making sure that no one can compete with us.

A good example is Apple Inc, first with its Mac, then iPod, iPhone and so forth.

Typical Consultant: Identify a target and then try to copy and then out do him.

A businss school professor cited the example of "Killing the Cat" referring to Komatsu competing with Caterpillar. 

Sun Zi: When we start to compete with others, we are already a loser. 

A good example that we can think of is Nokia's attempt to compete with iPhone and the Andriod phone with Microsoft Window-phone.

Where did Sun Zi say that?

Chapter 4 v 1. Sūnzǐ said: The good fighters of old first put themselves beyond the possibility of defeat, and then waited for an opportunity of defeating the enemy. 孙子曰：昔之善战者，先为不可胜，以待敌之可胜.

If you know Chinese, then a highly recommended book on Sun Zi's Art of War is at http://home.quanjinglian.com/home.php…  But may be I could be biased, for I find quite a number of my original views on Art of War were also shared by the author, 

The follow on question you may want to know is:

If I miss the boat, how can I recover?

See The Sun Zi's Art of War that even the experts may not know #2

Lim Liat (c) 24 May 2015