Competitive Interests

Presents the comprehensive framework of analytical techniques to help a firm analyze its industry as a whole and predict the industry's future evolution, to understand its competitors and its own position ...

In this book, author Svein Olaf Thorbjørnsen probes the question: What is at stake for human beings in a society dominated by competition, particularly economic competition? Is competition endemic to human nature? Does it preserve the dignity and intrinsic value of the human being? Does it secure better living conditions? In a way, the answer to these queries is a simple “yes.” It can allow for superior satisfaction of fundamental needs; legitimate self-love and self-realization; and encourage positive feelings upon mastering a skill. At the same time, however, competition can also contribute to a strong materialistic self-interest and support classicism, social ranking, and elitism: other human beings become only means to a personal success, thus jeopardizing fellowship and collaboration. In a hyper-competitive environment, some of the same positive human values mentioned above—self-love, self-realisation, individuality, and freedom—can be viewed to pose a threat to the realisation of one’s potential and to one’s true humanity. These competing, contradictory aspects of competition are presented and discussed from perspectives across varying disciplines, from social anthropology and economics to history, ethics, philosophy and theology.

Competitive Interests does more than simply challenge the long-held belief that a small set of interests control large domains of the public policy making landscape. It shows how the explosion in the sheer number of new groups, and the broad range of ideological demands they advocate, have created a form of group politics emphasizing compromise as much as conflict. Thomas T. Holyoke offers a model of strategic lobbying that shows why some group lobbyists feel compelled to fight stronger, wealthier groups even when they know they will lose. Holyoke interviewed 83 lobbyists who have been advocates on several contentious issues, including Arctic oil drilling, environmental conservation, regulating genetically modified foods, money laundering, and bankruptcy reform. He offers answers about what kinds of policies are more likely to lead to intense competition and what kinds of interest groups have an advantage in protracted conflicts. He also discusses the negative consequences of group competition, such as legislative gridlock, and discusses what lawmakers can do to steer interest groups toward compromise. The book concludes with an exploration of greater group competition, conflict, and compromise and what consequences this could have for policymaking in a representation-based political system.

This timely and important book, which won a special citation from the American Political Science Association’s Urban Affairs Section for its “major theoretical development,” analyzes the effect of competition among suburban communities to attract residents and business with the best public services and the lowest taxes. Using data from a large sample of suburban cities, Mark Schneider offers a theoretical extension of the Tiebout-Peterson approach to understanding public policies and integrates this perspective with recent work on the power of bureaucrats to control budgets.

THE ART OF SMART . . . how not to get blindsided by the competition Your key competitor has a cost advantage and you can’t for the life of you figure out why or how. • A new technology or competitor is on the horizon that will completely upset the applecart in your business as Google is now doing in advertising and Wal-Mart has done in retailing. • You think a key competitor may drastically drop prices or perhaps roll out a significant new product. What can you do to ascertain what their major moves will be? Competitive intelligence, the ability to see through or stay ahead of your competition, is the unspoken, hidden key to success. It is the means to knowing a customer’s strategic thinking, a rival’s cost structure when making a bid, or a competitor’s new product plans. Much as in a game of chess, you must think many moves ahead of your rivals—exactly the advantage competitive intelligence can give you. Leonard Fuld provides the tools to cut through the smoke screens and rumors that distort reality and shows: • How to avoid becoming your own worst enemy by removing blinders that can hide a competitor’s threatening moves • How to see your competitor’s vulnerability and take advantage of the easily exploitable opportunities it presents • How to run a war game to anticipate a rival’s pricing moves, new product introduction, or distribution strategy, and even to avoid being surprised by new entrants who play by different rules altogether For more than twenty-five years, Leonard Fuld has been developing groundbreaking ways for managers to stay two steps ahead of the competition, providing effective ways of finding out about pricing, new product rollouts, strategic alliances, outsourcing, and cost of operations. In The Secret Language of Competitive Intelligence he shows how to take data that is widely avail-able to everyone, think critically about it, and convert it into highly refined intelligence that leads to effective market-based decisions. Table of Contents DISRUPTIONS, DISTORTIONS, RUMORS, AND SMOKE SCREENS: Page 1 Just Another Day in the Office Chapter 1 THE ART OF SMART: Page19 How Intelligence Insight Helps Win the Game of Risk and Reward Chapter 2 REALITY BITES: Page 45 Remove the Blinders Chapter 3 WILL GOOGLE BEAT MICROSOFT?: Page 69 Using War Games to See Three Moves Ahead Chapter 4 MAKE ME INTO A PEPPERONI: Page 119 Seeing the Trees to Understand the Forest Chapter 5 EARLY WARNING: Page 135 Getting Intelligence on Competitors That May Not Exist in a World That Has Not Arrived Chapter 6 THE INTERNET HOUSE OF MIRRORS: Page 165 Seeing Through the Confusion to Gather Intelligence Gems Chapter 7 COMPETITIVE FOG: Page 211 How Rothschild, Buffett, Walton, Dell, and Branson Saw Clearly and Others Did Not Chapter 8 DAY TO DAY: Page 237 Integrating Intelligence with Your Work Chapter 9 THE BIG UNANSWERED QUESTIONS: Page269 Notes 285 Acknowledgments 293 Index 297 From the Hardcover edition.