Maintaining market leadership

of events in slightly different scenarios.
Trends enable us to make certain assumptions about the present and future.
They can also be used to make corrective measures on our business environment.
Ladies and gentleman join me in celebrating the trend that fascinated me last weekend.
My three friends, Alan, Alister and Chris and I had an extremely competitive game of bass fishing at Susugi International Dam.
As usual I was the first to catch bass. I was leading comfortably by lunch hour.
However, by end of the day I lost the game to Chris who caught a record breaking bass at the time we were packing our fishing equipment to go home.
Sometime in November last year I wrote an article about how Newton thoroughly beat me.
I was comfortably leading before lunch hour again and lost the game after afterwards.
These are two of the many competitions that I lost after initially taking the lead. Chris remarked that: “Ndinopedzera tsvimbo kumakunguwo hanga dzichauya.” (I spend most of my resources and efforts on trivial things when good opportunities are still coming)
These events seem to suggest that I am very excited, enthusiastic and passionate in the morning but I fizzle out in the afternoon because I tend to lack concentration and lose the game.
At times I feel tired and lose the zeal to compete. In most cases I tend to forget the original purpose of competing and become complacent.
I find it very difficult to maintain my leadership position though I easily attain it at the beginning.
The sad thing is no one except the losers are the ones that tend to remember their loss. People will only remember the winner.
Even if you come second people have a tendency to forget you. They only remember the number one.
I tend to behave like a fad which people are head over heels with for short time and disappear thereafter.
Alternatively I can be viewed as a product with a relatively short lifecycle that only lasts half the day.
Why do I lose competitions towards the end of day? How do I remain the number one right through to the end of day?
How do I finish strong? My father used to tell me a story about two businessmen (Maunze and Chipali) who had businesses in Gandazara village.
Maunze had retired from Venela (the term used for South African Migrant workers then) Maunze was the first one to open a general dealer shop in the village.
He was so successful in his endeavours that he bought himself a Zephr Zodic car. His trademark was his car and his rather flashy hairstyle.
He became very influential and famous. Before he knew it, mature and immature (educated and uneducated) members of the opposite sex started throwing themselves at him.
Then Chipali a businessman of Malawian origin entered the fray. His competitive advantage was based on delivering clean and fresh food.
His storekeeper was also very smart.
Ultimately he won the market. Slowly Maunze’s influence started to wear off.
His partners started to cross the floor to Chipali.
Generosity and progress appeared to have been permanent components of his genetic make up.
Maunze did not think that his customers and “friends” could desert him.
That was not possible (in Maunze’s world) considering that he was the first to open a shop, was also the first to bring a grammaphone radio into the village and he had a “cool” haircut.
Maunze chose to live in the past.
It is rumoured that Maunze paid some people burn Chipali’s shop though this did not in any way discourage him (Chipali).
Allow me to show the similarity of fisherman Ben’s mindset after lunch and Maunze’s mindset during the time he was facing stiff competition from Chipali.
According to my father, when Chipali was slowly taking over, Maunze thought that any of the four situations below would happen:
l What Chipali was doing has been done before .It does not work against my good intentions.
l Chipali was soon going to run out of steam and he would regain his market share. Chipali was one of those fly-by-night business people who would disappear quickly
l A miracle was going to happen. Chipali was going to be unfortunate somehow (it could be death, sickness etc) which would enable him to regain his market share
l The customers were going to realise that only Maunze was a true businessman
However, Maunze did not bother to match his competitor on the value proposition of cleanliness and freshness of his goods. He did not adapt to the new needs of the customers. This is exactly what I go through during my afternoon matches.
I always feel that there is no need to change the rubbers that did the job well in the morning though the weather conditions would have changed in the afternoon.
At times I think something is going to distract my competitors from winning.
I always feel that somehow I will hold on to my leadership position even if I notice signs of losing the position.
To be honest reality always dawns on me when we are going home. My obvious challenge, as a fisherman is how to reinvent myself and become competitive in the afternoon.
Maunze failed to extend his life cycle when Chipali took over the market leadership position and I also fail to extend my lifecycle in the afternoon.
If a company has got the right product mix, right marketing mix, it can easily become the market leader.
Getting to the top is relatively easier but staying at the top is difficult.
Once you become the benchmark competitors would want to beat you. Good practices are always copied anyway. In 1983 Royal Dutch /Shell carried a survey and found that one third of the firms in the Fortune 500 in the 1970’s had vanished. This implies that they failed to maintain their positions.
The three companies I worked for between 1992 and 2001 disappeared in Zimbabwe including the internationally renowned CU Assurance. The world is littered with so many graves of once big conglomerates.
So what does it take to maintain leadership position? Many companies, which have survived over a long period of time at the top share some common attributes.
These are the ability to set visions, which transcend generations, defend its turf, to sort out succession planning, learn and ability to do proper branding.
l The writer is a managing consultant at CLC Training International.
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