Chapter 7 Managing Rivalry for Customers and Other Resources

Overview

Building your own resources is challenging enough, but competitors are not going to sit by and let you take what you want without a fight. Even in nonbusiness situations, we struggle to win people, supporters, cash, and other resources. This chapter considers how to win, develop, and retain resources, and shows how rivalry plays out through time. This chapter will do the following:

• explain the three dominant forms of rivalry: turning potential customers into actual customers, capturing rivals’ customers, and competing for sales to shared customers
• show how these processes work, both on their own and in combination, and describe the challenge facing managers in deciding where to act to win these battles