Business is war

captain L.P.h. Kouwenberg msc

strategic management tiasnimbas business school register controller 16

january 2012

The strategy in businesses can be compared to the strategy on the battlefield in many aspects. In both settings a good strategy is crucial to survive and reach your own goals and to prevent defeat by the enemy or competitor who, most probably, has opposing wills. In these pages, the strategy in businesses is linked to the military principles of war. I believe that there are quite some similarities between that what is educated at the Military Academy and that what I’ve learned at TiasNimbas. Although different lists with military principles of war circulate, the ones discussed in this paper are of frequent occurrence. On the battlefield as well as in business applying one principle makes is hard, or even impossible to apply an other at the same time. The commanding officer needs to weigh one against another and choose the best for the specific situation.
Objective
Direct every military operation towards a clearly defined, decisive, and attainable objective. This needs little to none translation to a non-combatant environment. If it’s not completely clear what you want to achieve, one thing is sure, you’ll never reach your objective. So start with making that clear and think of ways to evaluate the completion of your objective. You need to know and to understand where results come from in order to adapt and survive.
Offensive
When you have the initiative, it is you who decides where and when battles are fought. It prevents the enemy to exploit all of his strength, which gives the attacker great advantages. This means for businesses that to be successful, you must have the initiative over your competitors. Be sure that you pick the markets you want to compete in with the products you can face the competitor. Let the