A few days ago, I had an appointment in Kajang with a potential customer. The appointment did not go the way I wanted because he didn’t have the money to do what I proposed. So I went my way home. Kajang is about 30km from the city centre and is famous for satay. If you don’t know what that is, click on this link. Basically it is very similar to shish kebab. I have not been to Kajang for several years so it was an opportunity to eat satay. And I went to look for the original stall.
After turning around the town centre a few times and asking the folks there, I finally found the shop. I was told to avoid a large stall there as the satay is not the best. By the way, they had a big shop with a huge sign that most people will not miss. Looking for the “original” stall, finally I found the place. The local council built up a place for all satay stalls to be located, so that tourist have little problems to choose the stall of their choice. Without much thought, and be escorted by enthusiastic waiters, I sat down to order the beef, chicken and rabbit satay. And settled down to nice fresh coconut water.
Since the food took some time to arrive, I decided to take a closer look at the signs on the stalls. And much to my surprise, apparently, all but one of the stalls are under “the” big stall I avoided from the beginning! Some how, the owner of that stall have convince the others to a joint venture with him. On the side, there was a small logo of the big shop. And this joint venture is quite successful. They more or less have ousted the competitors from that eatery. This big shop have more staff, better lighting but less good food.
An I was sort of amazed at what had happened. Some where along the years, this owner decided to grow big and instead of competing with each other, they decided to cooperate. Now, I’m not sure if the JV was equitable, or the others were left with no choice, but it is interesting. I also felt sorry for the lone satay owner battling with the big guy. Why? The big boys waiters watched all the entrance to the eatery and escorted the customers to their area! It only left the small guy with those customers who really know the difference, and that’s very little. It’s not like I’ll be going back for satay in the next few months, and the next time I go there, I might fall into the same “trap”.
The lesson here, just because you are the “original” or provided better product, you can still be in danger due to better marketing, better strategy or bigger size of your competitor. So it is with your money, business, job etc. Look for where danger can come from. Sun Tzu says this, know your competitor, know yourself, 100 battles fought, 100 battles won.
Technorati Tags: competition, joint venture – benefits of
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