People often talk about business competition as if it’s a short race: Get to market first and you are bound to win. Indeed, the importance of first-mover advantage has been drummed into the heads of many business executives, and some have almost been brainwashed to think that speed is everything. But when a new technology threatens to transform an industry, the companies that are quickest to respond aren’t necessarily the ones that reap the greatest benefits. In fact, choosing a fast strategy can lock them into a set of decisions that actually hurt them in the long run. Instead, organizations that choose the right strategy for the entire race — both for the early and late stages — will come out ahead. In other words, business competition is a marathon, not a sprint.
For any company faced with an innovation like digital photography or the Internet that could transform its business, one of the fundamental decisions it will need to make is organizational: Should it spin off an autonomous group to respond to the development, or should it instead use a more integrated approach?1 It must also decide when to act: early, when the innovation is taking shape, or later, when the impact and viability of the new technology is better known. Furthermore, because the nature of competition changes over time, the... To read the complete article, login or sign-up using the form below.
Become a premium subscriber today to read this and all MIT Sloan Managmeent Review articles.
Buy this article. Purchase one or more copies of this article in PDF form.
Become a premium subscriber today to read this article and the entire archive of MIT SMR articles.
Upgrade your existing subscription to premium
Sign in if you are a premium subscriber.
Do you subscribe the MIT Sloan Management Review in print? Enter the email address and password you used when ordering. Don't remember? Lookup your subscription account information
- Register for free access to recent articles and the current issue of MIT Sloan Management Review.
- Subscribe and read articles from the past three years online.
- Premium subscription give you access to the entire archive of articles.
