At the world today, we have passed many wars, like, World War I, World War II, Persian War, Iraq War, etc. Yet, I can tell you that we are still at War. Since, the war is unavoidable in this world, as long as people are still have infinite demand, aka, greeds. However, the war has been through extreme make over so much that no one can recognize it.
Nowadays, the war is known as business, and the prize is not a physical land or country, but land in customer heart and profit. CEO is like a king, marketing is like intelligence and sale is warriors. A very good marketer would, therefore, give a good strategic advices to the king to win the war.
In those day, they just need to understand what the king or warrior of their enemies was thinking or planning to do, but, nowadays, they need to understand not only their enemies, but also, most importantly, their customers. Once, the marketers could understand their customers so well, they can simply ignore what would their competitors do. However, there cost you nothing to keep an eye on your competitors or spend more time to understand them as well.
On the other hand, the war today will never stop. Once, you were the ultimate winner (all of your competitors are out of business), there would be, for sure, a new challenger what would fight you with even more better strategies. Therefore, would it be better to maintain certain level of competition in the market in order to create an entry barrier for a new comers, while you could be the market leader in the industry. In this way, you can optimize company value to shareholders and customers.
Posted by zenicism 