Competition
March 2nd, 2007 by 
Amish Parashar
We meet with entrepreneurs at all stages of venture creation, one of the first questions I often ask is about competition. In light of this I thought it would be useful to put up some thoughts on the dreaded “C” word:
Competition isn’t a bad thing.
Educating customers is a difficult prospect, especially for a product or service that is disruptive. If your competitors are going to help you do this you should thank them. In the face of competition we are forced to articulate the meaningful, differentiated value we are providing.
The amount of competition is likely to be inversely proportional to what we initially think.
Our gut reaction tends to be ‘feast’ or ‘famine’ – either “I have no competitors” or “Every venture on the planet is trying to do what I do”. Each of these scenarios merits more work into understanding your competitive landscape; what do people buy and why do they buy it? A corollary of this is the classic sell one each person in China business plan.
Competition isn’t just direct competitors.
It is goods or services that are alternatives to yours – including, but not only, those that are similar to yours. If you are an event planner your competition isn’t only other event planners but also the resources available for those planning their own events.
Competition isn’t static.
The most successful ventures will foster the growth of competitors – the secret is knowing that this will happen and planning for it.
Even the most revolutionary ventures have competitors.
That is to say the customer always has a next best alternative. Even a insulin for diabetic (a classic example of a necessary purchase at almost any price) has an alternative – no insulin at all.
We’ll add to the list as the not-so-dreaded ‘C’ words come up in conversations, business plans, and presentations.
Does competition have too negative a connotation? What do you think?
Posted in Bootstrapping, Entrepreneurial, Solutions, Start-up, Venture Capital | 
March 10th, 2007 at 11:54 am
[…] Amish Parashar presents Competition posted at New venture outsourcing blog, saying, “thank you — this is our new blog (version 2 that is).” […]
March 12th, 2007 at 5:18 am
[…] Competition - Amish Parashar notes several important truths about competition and startups, including the fact that your competition is not always who you think it is. […]
March 16th, 2007 at 6:48 am
[…] Amish Parashar presents Competition posted at New venture outsourcing blog. […]
May 11th, 2007 at 2:54 pm
Hong Nguyen
English 126-0138
May 10, 2007
The Truth Behind Outsourcing
The United States has always been a country with many opportunities and a lot of wide range jobs available. However, as the time passes by these opportunities seem to be diminishing with the constant hiring of oversea workers. The outsourcing market is growing tremendously and expected to grow even more in the next couple of years. Companies are planning to outsource both low end and high end jobs in the United States and offshore. This new cheaper workforce seems to be a far better advantage for employers and companies seem to be taking advantage of the situation. The increase in oversea hiring means a lot of change for the economy, for the better or the worse it remains a mystery. While outsourcing provides companies with lots of benefits for some it’s considered to be a hazardous threat. Only the truth can settle this matter and by analyzing evidence we can come to the right conclusion.
Though outsourcing seems to have its advantages it may possibly be lies to cover up the truth. Outsourcing jobs is used by companies mainly to cut the cost of operations. Companies outsource in order to compete with other companies and at the same time make a profit (Otterman,2007).Profit and money is everything and there is no denying it. Some may argue that outsourcing is good because it creates cheaper goods but it only provides producers with the choice to sell cheaper goods. Given the opportunity companies don’t do what’s best for the consumer; they do what’s best for them, making profit. Though jobs are outsourced and goods are made for less money, products still remain relatively high because companies can. Outsourcing jobs can also mean lost of jobs for many Americans especially for those in the high-tech field. (Cyber Futuristics, 2007). According to Denise Dubie reporter for Network World, one of the biggest challenges employers face is finding qualified employees. Since this is such a difficult task they have to turn to oversea workers. Not only do oversea workers provide a bigger employment pond for companies they are cheaper too (Dubie, 2007). This however seems to be merely one of the excuses given by companies to excuse themselves for acting on their own behalf. Edwin J. Feulner, Ph.d says “The United States has the best educated, most productive, most adaptive workforce in the world.” If the United States provide educated, productive, and talented people, what more can companies ask for? Companies claim to outsource due to a small workforce available but here they are laying off people who are well- qualified for these jobs and ignoring the many others to outsource to foreign counties where education is a minimum and skills are lacking (Gollsby, 2007).According to Dubie 500 of the fastest growing North American companies turned to offshore services and 55% intend to move their work overseas (2007). This possibly could be due to the cut in cost rather then the search for talented workers. Though corporations seem to be thinking their getting a deal by hiring these offshore workers some companies who have tried regretted their decision. A company who outsourced many operations to India found how hard and costly it was to communicate with their workers. They also concluded that Indians are not productive and at times took 2 weeks to get a job done when it could’ve been done in 2 days in the United States by a skilled worker (Bartlett, 2006).
Business people, companies, corporations factories are driven by money, achievement, and fear. They fear failure, lost of power, and appearing weak. They are competing with one another and by being in competition they ignore the rest. They don’t care about employees, or consumers. They make quick decisions without considering all the details which result in long run failure, what they feared. Outsourcing at first glance seems the way to go due to smaller wages but the long run effects can be damaging. Companies who plan inefficiently risk heavy loses and customer dissatisfaction (Goolsby, 2007). Customer dissatisfaction can mean lost in sales, and profit which can destroy the whole concept of outsourcing jobs to begin with
Edwin J Feulner in an article titled “The Truth about Outsourcing “ asserts that even though employees are losing their jobs due to outsourcing they can easily find another one, often times at a higher salary. After doing research this seems very vague because
May 15th, 2007 at 12:12 am
Our experience has shownt that Outsourcing is creating domestic jobs while enabling more robust, nimble, responsive domestic companies. Innovation is now global, Americans now have access to markets and resources that have previously been closed. I think there is an alternate view to the research you have presented above…
thanks for comments..