Attacking the soft underbelly of your competitor

Competing against a rival’s strengths is a common-but-flawed strategy, says Ken Sawka, a partner at Outward Insights LLC, a competitive intelligence and strategy consulting firm. In a recent monograph he asks: “Wouldn’t it make more sense to marshal a company’s strengths and attack competitors where they are weak?”

He cites the example of Hewlett-Packard Co., which fared poorly when it tried to compete with Dell Inc. via direct Internet sales, but fared much better when it pursued a retail sales strategy (e.g., Wal-Mart and Best Buy), where Dell had no presence.

Sawka suggests three techniques:

• Use competitor-analysis tools that go beyond basic Strengths-Weaknesses-Opportunities-Threats (SWOT) analysis. Michael Porter’s Four-Corners analysis, for instance, can help company strategists assess a competitor’s intent, objectives and strengths; from there, you can identify a competitive strategy that maneuvers around the rival’s strengths, and that plays to your company’s capabilities.
• Early Warning analysis that helps spot industry trends. Use that advance notice to to develop contingency plans. This way, strategists can spend less time being reactive and more time executing pre-conceived plans.
• Broad industry analysis techniques like scenario analysis that can uncover present and future alliances (like HP and Best Buy) that create win-win strategies for partners and further weaken competitors.

What I like about this firm’s approach to competitive intelligence is that it’s forward-looking (“early warning,” “scenario analysis”) — to some degree a blend of competitive intelligence, strategy and futurist work.

I also like this firm’s tagline: “The Intelligence to Anticipate. The Strategy to Lead.”

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Glossary of terms, including early warning, SWOT and four-corners analysis.

Stanford researchers trying to develop robot like the Jetson’s Rosie

Isaac Asimov would be pleased! Computer science professor Oussama Khatib and his research group at the Stanford Artificial Intelligence Laboratory are working to make humanoid robots more graceful, useful and safety-conscious in complex human environments, according to a Stanford University announcement.

“Humanoid robots today can walk and wave, but they cannot interact with the world,” Khatib said. “We are developing robots with the capability to physically touch, push and move objects.”

To be useful, robots must be able to manipulate objects as they move through their environments — just like the Jetsons’ robotic maid Rosie gracefully slid through rooms as she dusted tables, cleaned windows and vacuumed the floor in the animated TV series.

One trick to making robot movements more human-like is to mimic the human tendency to use the minimal amount of muscular effort to accomplish the task, and to avoid doing anything uncomfortable, Khatib said. The researchers studied human movements to produce an “energy-optimization model,” which allows the robot to accomplish tasks using a “smooth path” while minimizing physical effort — just like humans do.

In about a year, Khatib hopes to see his ideas embodied in one of Honda’s humanoid robots, ASIMO. Though this seven-year-old robot can walk, run and greet passers-by, it cannot yet perform useful tasks in a complex, real-time world. With Khatib’s new software, ASIMO eventually will be able to perform chores such as ironing and clearing tables.

Safety First
Robots like ASIMO also must be safe and human-friendly to achieve popularity in a human environment, the release noted. For example, to safely shake a person’s hand, a robot must understand the proper pressure to apply. So workers in Khatib’s lab have designed robot arms that use multiple motors (instead of just one) for a softer touch.

The Stanford announcement said Khatib envisions a not-so-distant future in which robots will perform boring chores such as washing dishes or filing office papers with little or no human involvement — except voice commands.

Intelligence Briefs

An eclectic collection of discoveries:

China’s smoggy capital city of Beijing adds 1,000 vehicles to its roads each day. — The Wall Street Journal (5 July 2007)

A competitive intelligence professional says he loves PowerPoint — “mainly due to the misuse of it.” He continues: “When presentations are made available on competitors’ Web sites after a financial call or large event, you can always find plenty of gems within the dense slides.” — Dan McHugh

Office rents are skyrocketing across the U.S. and driving up business costs, because of a dearth of space in some major markets and deep-pocketed landlords who can afford to hold out for premium tenants. — The Wall Street Journal (5 July 2007)

Here’s a collection of 250-plus online resources for competitive intelligence about the pharmaceutical and health care industries. — Fuld & Co. (registration required)

Attention deficit: Americans less concerned about avian flu pandemic

Levels of concern about avian (or bird) flu have diminished in the U.S. over the last 12 months, according to a survey conducted by Ipsos Public Affairs.

Only about one quarter of respondents (27%) indicate more than a moderate level of concern about avian flu in the U.S. generally, down eight percentage points from last year. Asked more specifically whether they see avian flu as a threat to their personal health or the health of their families, only 15% of respondents report more than a moderate level of concern.

There’s anecdotal evidence that business interest in planning for a pandemic is waning, too. As Gartner Inc. analyst Ken McGee put it (here):

“Most clients would not be prepared if this descended upon the world tomorrow — they just simply would not be ready,” he said. “I think it’s just part of the human condition: You don’t put the stop sign up until after the traffic accident.”

McGee is as concerned as ever about the threat of a pandemic, but he’s worried that fears are waning in the U.S. And, he said, he’s afraid “that people will learn the hard way that they cannot respond to a pandemic situation once it has been declared, because everyone will be trying to do that and nothing will get done.”

More results from the Ipsos poll:

Recall of news coverage about avian flu is also on the decline. The proportion of Americans saying they have read, heard or seen at least some coverage about it is now 56%, down 18 percentage points from 74% a year ago.

A majority of Americans (62%) now feel that government leaders are giving enough attention to the issue. Nearly a third (32%), however, would like to see avian flu given a greater focus.

Ipsos Methodology
The survey was conducted online among 1,438 U.S. adults aged 18 and over interviewed between June 7 and 17, 2007 with Ipsos’ Online Omnibus. Results are demographically balanced to represent the population of adults aged 18 and over in the United States. The margin of error is 3.1 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence.

Deconstructing… Southwest Airlines

A recent Wall Street Journal article provides some insights about challenging times for Southwest Airlines, where revenue growth has slowed, and its cost advantage from hedging fuel costs has slipped. ( “As Competition Rebounds, Southwest Faces Squeeze,” 27 June 2007 )

Copycats: Southwest’s competitive advantage has been low costs and efficiency, but other airlines (e.g. JetBlue) have learned the same tricks.

Cost metric: Its “unit cost” — the cost per seat, per mile flown — was 8.8 cents last year, up 17% from four years ago. The company expects cost-per-seat to continue rising and then level off in 2010.

Prices: Southwest raised ticket prices six times last year, which boosted its average fare by 11.4%, but passengers are starting to resist fare increases.

Profits: Southwest probably won’t hit its 15% profit-growth target this year.

Future plans: CEO Gary Kelly plans to shake things up. He wants to identify underperforming flights with an eye to shifting planes to more lucrative routes. To woo business travelers, he may opt for assigned seating. He’s requested bids on in-flight entertainment systems.

Technology: Southwest is using new software (developed in-house) to squeeze 50 more hours of flying time out of its fleet each day, the equivalent of four additional planes.