Entrepreneurs The Art Of War & Sun Tzu
The Art Of War is an ancient classic revived many times over by many modern authors in a surprising number of languages. This tome is used today really as the strategic education to build power, wealth by entrepreneurs to beat your competitors in Business. The ideas were attributed to a famous general and brilliant military strategist from China, General Sun Tzu.
Victorious Chinese Warrior
This imperial military commander was said to have developed all his strategies as he battled his enemies. But today’s scholars use the valuable lessons of the Art of War to win in the Art of Business.
1) Strategic Assessments;
Assess the comparitive positions between yourself and your cometitors. They are the 5 things: The Way; The weather; The Terrain; The Leadership; and Discipline.
2) Doing Battle;
When doing battle, be decisive and win quickly. Even the best, most well equiped army will lose their focus and a long drawn out battle is very costly, draining the company’s resources. Attrition of the best leaders will make the company vulnerable to attatck.
3) Planning a Siege;
When creating a campaign to take over a company it is better to win it intact than destroying your competitor. Assess your competitor and use tactics that will disable them and offer them a better choice to surrender and join your forces while they keep their honour and business intact. It is better to create an ally than an enemy that will battle to the end.
4) Formation;
Make yourself appear strong and invincible while trying to discern your opponent’s strength and vulnerability. Also, appear to be what you want your opponent to see you as. This is a strategy of utmost skill development to defend against those that will try to take you at a disadvantage while attacking those that you find has a disadvantage – you can see that avoiding extraneous costs and getting a client to buy at the best possible terms and price is advantageous to you.
5) Force ;
The secret to the power of force is in using it to advantage. Build momentum and do not falter, but build and continue to build until you win. Also, on a larger strategy, winning one campaign does not mean you stop. You can continue to build at a comfortable pace without ruining your resources.
6) Emptiness And Fullness;
Be first to the battlefield – get to the market first and early to stake out your advantage – you gain control of the market before others and hold your position or indeed, win against any pretenders coming later. In effect, you can use this to great profitable effect by winning the country for a relatively small price. In effect, you control the market and extract your price. You come out full, your enemy goes away empty.
7) Armed Struggle;
If a long drawn out battle is unavoidable, then use strategy to shorten it. Use your assessments of your opponent and attack with greater force and commitment than your opponent will ever dare expect. Cause as much damage as possible showing your determination and abilities. You will demoralize them and shorten the war. Give your opponent a way out – an enemy battling to the death will inflict much damage. Offer them a place by your side an keep as much of the new resources as intact as possible.
8) Adaptations;
These strategies are meant for difficult situations for survival. Adapt to the condition quickly and turn extremely agressive or defend vehemently when the need arises. Change the rules of the game and confuse the enemy. Make your opponent balk at challenging you in any circumstance.
9) Manuevering Armies;
A game of strategic thinking to your advantage and creating conditions disadvantageous to your opponent. Move fast when you make them expect you will move slowly; move slowly when they expect you to take a headlong charge. When you obeserve your enemy having difficulty, let them commit half their resources and then you attack with all your resources. Even a superior enemy will fall and break.
10) Terrain;
Understand your terrain through careful observations. Some times the battlefield is open and equal on all sides. If the intelligence gathered favours the opponent, do not battle, find a different battle ground – let the opponent do the travelling as you gain the upper hand first. If the intelligence gathered favour you greatly, then attack to win. Again, it is better to demoralize the opponent and offer them a way out.
11) Nine Grounds;
This is a lengthy treatise for training and testing the most skilled of leaders. We will not go into them here. But the usefulness is in the assessment of the types of possible scenarios that businesses can get into. Again, the main focus is to remove all threats from your opponent and the most skilled will actually target the removal of the leadership and then usurping the entire opposing or target company.
12) Fire Attack;
This is really a plan of stealth before a massive attack – a calm before the storm. With the use of spies and assessments, a fire attack can create havoc within an enemy’s stronghold and cause a great panic of all the guards and soldiers. If there is no panic, do not attack because you have either got the wrong target or that they wish to destroy their stronghold rather than surrender it. This is in keeping with destroying the leadership and winning the shortened war.
13) Use Spies;
This is foreknowledge. Intelligence gathering to either ward of an attack or to win your battles. Wars and battles are always a great drain on your resources. Why not take preemptive measures when possible instead of an all out war? Research before going into a business is the message here as well.
The above is a brief on the treatises of Sun Tzu’s Art of War and anyone wishing to learn this in more detail should consult the numerous written books on the subject.
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