Competition demystified
by Bruce Greenwald, Judd Kahn · first published 2005
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Columbia Business School professor Greenwald offers a new theory of competition for strategic planners to apply in the real world. He argues that there is only one essential factor in determining competitive advantages: how easy it is for competitors to enter or expand in a given market. If a company can erect strong barriers to entry--through customer captivity, lower production costs, or economies of scale--it can manage these advantages, anticipate competitors' moves, or achieve stability through bargaining and cooperation. Greenwald draws on game theory to explain what you should do if bar
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…good competitors. We should seek to be really good monopolists." A better way to put this is to say that the starting point of competitive strategy is to start with a sustainable competitive advantage. "Competition Demystified" by value investing guru Bruce Greenwald covers this point in its first chapter (available free on Google Books -- http://books.google.com/books?id=NZYuAyW8M-sC&printsec=f... and summarized by me in a…
on “The Creative Monopoly” ↗…be a stock market genius by Joel Greenblatt: where to look for undervaluation The Essays of Warren Buffett by Lawrence Cunningham: Buffett's thoughts in Buffett's words, neatly categorised by topic Competition Demystified by Bruce Greenwald: how to identify a high quality business
on “Ask HN: What books have made the biggest impact on your mental models?” ↗…I'd recommend: Tuned In Joel on Software Don't Make Me Think The Lean Startup The Mythical Man Month The Art of Innovation: Lessons in Creativity from IDEO The Design of Everyday Things Escape Velocity Competition Demystified The Art of Agile Development
on “Ask HN: Suggestions for product management courses for a software engineer?” ↗My understanding is that collusion among competitors is illegal (although I’m not a lawyer). I was referring instead to the prisoner’s dilemma that Bruce Greenwald discusses in Competition Demystified. In theory, competitors, like prisoners who are pitted against one another to rat on one another, are usually better off cooperating rather than turning against each other.