Acerca da concorrência

O 9º capítulo, "When You Define Competition Wrong", do livro de Alan Klement "When Coffee and Kale Compete" está cheio de pequenas pérolas.

"Just because consumers aren’t using your product, or another product of same type, doesn’t mean they are nonusers. This is another big difference between JTBD and other approaches to markets and innovation. JTBD insists that if consumers have a JTBD, they must be using something for it.
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Here’s the twist: that “something” that consumers use for their JTBD doesn’t include products that one can only buy. It includes any compensatory behavior, paying someone else for help, making one’s own solution, or combining solutions. Each counts as a solution for a JTBD.
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there are two mistakes I sure as heck wouldn’t have made: 

• Limiting my definition of competition to products that look and function similarly

• Not making sure a real struggle was taking place and that customers were willing—and able—to pay for a solution

These are common mistakes when you don’t apply a JTBD view to competition. But they aren’t the only ones.
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A less common mistake—but just as dangerous—is to believe that products are competitors when they are not. One example of this is the widespread belief that PCs and mainframes are (or were) competitors.
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Don’t restrict competition to products with similar functionality or physical characteristics. Don’t assume two products are competitors because they look or function similarly. There are two related mistakes people make about what is and isn’t competition for a product.
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Thinking that two solutions compete against each other because they share similar characteristics. Even though PCs and mainframes are both computers, they don’t compete in the slightest."

Enquanto lia isto não podia deixar de pensar nos ginásios que pensam que os ginásios low-cost são a sua concorrência quando eu os vejo como "mineradores" a construir mercado futuro.
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Na outra vertente, Klement frisa muitas vezes que o concorrente da nossa oferta pode ser uma outra oferta de um sector económico completamente diferente. Por isso, o título do livro "When Coffee and Kale Compete"

"Do you think you’re creating a new market? Think again. For too long, businesses have created, and been encouraged to create, their own definitions of markets—that is, which products do and do not compete against each other. JTBD offers us a way to rethink how we define markets.
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If you think you’re creating a new market, then you probably haven’t done enough research. Have you explored all the options that customers consider as competition for a JTBD solution? Perhaps customers are solving their problems in ways that don’t require the purchase of a physical product.
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If you don’t have a clear picture of what customers are going to give up when they start using your product, either you haven’t done enough research, or no JTBD exists and you’re creating a solution that no one will buy."[Moi ici: Esta pôs-me a pensar a sério em porque não faço tantos projectos balanced scorecard quanto gostaria]