"We find that in ‘rugged’ markets with many consumer niches firms disperse to stable distributions where they serve individual consumer niches, there is little adaptation of products, and the effect of competition on performance is small. In contrast, in markets with homogeneous consumer preferences, competition causes persistently volatile situations where firms constantly jostle for favorable positions. Here, competition is highly detrimental to performance and market leaders are frequently dethroned. We conclude that the dynamics of competition matter and are influenced by the distribution of consumer preferences. Our results contrast with the equilibrium solutions commonly used to model horizontal differentiation in industrial organization."Chega-se ao fim do artigo e pensa-se em Mongo:
- Mongo é esse mercado cheio de inúmeros picos, where we are all weird and proud of it;
- Mongo é onde não faz sentido correr atrás dos concorrentes, é onde faz sentido é focar nos clientes-alvo do nicho escolhido;
- Mongo é onde não faz sentido copiar o que o outro faz, é onde faz sentido ser diferente;
- Mongo é onde a arte e o artesão e o criador vencem o vómito industrial;
- Go Mongo: "WE will find a place (To settle) Where there's so much space"
Num extremo, o autor realiza uma simulação de uma paisagem competitiva com um único pico, um único "nicho" onde estão as preferências dos consumidores. O paradigma do século XX era o do mercado de massas:
"for a rising number of firms the average performance stabilizes at a lower level. Thus, competition from rivals stealing consumers hurts performance, which is exactly what we would expect in a real world setting.
...
with increasing competition the product variants offered in the market display greater heterogeneity: on average firms produce products that are similar to but not identical with the modal consumer preference.
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in competitive markets with homogeneous consumer preferences firms never settle down. Instead, they continue to move around by adjusting their products. Because firms only move when they can increase their (expected) performance and we know from panel (A) that average performance has stabilized, that must mean that they are engaged in a constant process of stealing each other’s consumers.
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With an increasing number of competitors it becomes increasingly unlikely that the most successful firm today is the same one it was yesterday: defending a leading market share becomes increasingly difficult the more competitors there are in the market.
Taken together these results suggest that in smooth landscapes increasing competition causes markets to become increasingly and persistently volatile. Firms do not settle down to stable positions but rather ‘dance’ around the peak, continuously jostling for the best position and being thwarted by their competitors. In terms of products the result is a continuous stream of new but similar product specifications which become more and more diverse as competition increases. The cutthroat competition of stealing market shares we observe in these markets hurts firm performance, not only on average but even for the most successful firms who are in constant in danger of losing their leading position."
No outro extremo, o autor simula Mongo, com KK cada vez maiores:
"For landscapes with few peaks (low ) increasing competition hurts performance. ... as the landscape becomes increasingly rugged, the detrimental effect of competition on performance decreases. If there are several niches it matters less if there are lots of rivals.Por vezes tento encontrar paralelismos entre o funcionamento do mercado de nichos em Mongo e o funcionamento dos mercados na era pré-industrial em que a geografia impunha uma barreira à homogeneização. Agora não é a geografia mas as tribos do gosto:
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as the landscape becomes rugged, firms locate closer to a peak, regardless of the number of competitors in the market. This result suggests that firms may be dispersing to serve different niches.
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For markets with few consumer niches competition has a large influence on volatility: the more firms in the market, the more movement we observe. As ruggedness increases the average number of moves per firm and period decreases, regardless of the number of competitors. In very rugged landscapes ( K= 9) it makes hardly any difference whether there are two or eight firms in the market: firms have reached an essentially stable distribution.
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In smooth landscapes the probability that the market leader will be dethroned depends heavily on the number of competitors. Thus, if there is a single large consumer niche then it will be difficult for any one firm to defend a lead in the market. As the number of niches increases the number of competitors matters less and less"
"First, the dynamics of competition matter. We find that in markets with few large consumer niches competition causes volatile situations where firms jostle for profit by constantly adapting their products. In these ‘smooth’ markets firms constantly steal each other’s market shares and even successful firms are unable to retain a lead for long.
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Second, market leaders are regularly dethroned in competitive markets with homogeneous preferences but are comparatively safe in markets with many niches.
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Third, the distribution of consumer preferences influences the dynamics of competition and its influence on firm performance. We find that as the number of consumer niches increases, firms disperse to serve individual peaks and settle down quickly to stable solutions. There, differentiation softens competition and successful firms are likely to remain market leader for some time.
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Finally, competition with different degrees of consumer heterogeneity may cause interesting effects in positioning. The results from the model suggest that in markets with homogeneous preferences we should observe a large number product specifications that are similar but not identical to what most consumers want. Furthermore, we should observe constant changes to products. In markets with heterogeneous preferences we should observe product specifications catering to the tastes of individual niches. There, we would expect comparatively static offerings with few adaptations in product specifications."
BTW, gostava que o autor, tivesse introduzido no modelo uma característica no consumidor. O autor pôs as empresas a evoluírem em função das preferências de gosto dos consumidores, e se tivesse introduzido uma co-evolução? Tanto as empresas evoluem em função das preferências dos consumidores, como os consumidores, a outro ritmo, também vão evoluindo nas suas preferências.
Trechos retirados de "Competition on Rugged Landscapes: The Dynamics of Horizontal Differentiation" de Leon Zucchini.
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