Introduction
While serving different purposes, business and military strategies are similar. Both of them are tools designed for achieving advantages and winning the competition. Military strategy is used for direct defeating the enemy, while the business aims to produce more and better goods and earn more money for them. In general, military strategies may enrich the business ones, providing solid tools for winning the competition in case of their proper realization.
Military Strategy and Business Strategy Comparison
Marketing and business strategies share many similarities with warfare and military theory. Like in the military strategy, marketing aims to spread the influence of the business and conquer new “territories” to sell its products. However, types of competition are different in both cases: during the war, one should destroy their enemies and conquer the territory or some particular object (Luggin & Fink, 2020). To start a successful business, one should conquer people not by destroying them but by attracting them and selling goods and services to them (Palmatier & Crecelius, 2019). At the same time, other players in the market compete over the customers’ limited resources (Simeone, 2020). The situation looks similar to the war scene: markets can be seen as battlegrounds, companies as fighting armies, and their profitability as armies’ power.
Companies design and execute strategies, form alliances, and overthrow competitors, just as armies of rival states. Netflix, for example, has succeeded in the field of media by reaching strong competitive advantages, proposing to customers a subscription-based platform for film and video watching (Fawzia & Wardhani, 2020). The company’s business strategy was new and unique, and it proved to be more effective in attracting customers than competitors’ ones. Like armies at war, working businesses should have good suppliers that will provide them with goods: from office supplies to raw materials for production. While troops need weapons and various warfare technologies, businesses need a more diverse range of goods and technologies to make themselves more effective and profitable (Aćimović et al., 2021). CEOs of companies work similarly to army generals; however, there are also differences, for example, in the level of centralization. Companies’ governance may be more or less centralized, while military leadership is always authoritative and strictly hierarchical.
Examples of Battles
The Battle of Borodino
To see how war decisions lead to losses or facilitate victories, it is better to see some historical examples of battles. The first one is an example of a battle where the victory gets a minimal competitive advantage and, thus, takes no profit. The Battle of Borodino took place in 1812 near Moscow, on the territory of the Russian Empire, between Russian troops and French invaders (Battle of Borodino | European History, 2021). It was part of the Napoleonic Wars when Napoleon Bonaparte aimed to conquer Europe. He intended to smash Russian forces using his advantage in human force, but he was unsuccessful in that.
Although the Russians had many casualties, the French army also had extended losses. They were in Russian territory, not the neutral one: thus, despite the Russian army’s retreat and formal French victory, it did not take them any competitive advantage to compensate for their casualties (Luggin & Fink, 2020). At the same time, it was much easier for Russian to restore after the retreat, as they were at home. After the battle, Napoleon’s troops captured Moscow, which became a burden for the French army, not an advantage. They could not recover after casualties and gain any support among Russians. At the same time, the Russian military restored and attacked French troops back, eventually defeating them and kicking them out of the Russian Empire.
The Battle of Borodino shows an example of an unsuccessful attempt to achieve a competitive advantage. Like French troops in Russia in 1812, a company may spend a lot of resources trying to reach a competitive advantage in a completely alien and unfamiliar market. The result will always be negative: the company will lose its investments, as it cannot buy anything useful in the foreign market. As capturing Moscow did not give any advantage over Napoleon’s army, capturing the market would not get any competitive advantage without a clear business strategy based on actual knowledge about this market (Simeone, 2020). Sun Tzu wrote in his The Art of War that one should “analyze the enemy’s plans so that you will know his shortcomings as well as his strong points” (David, 2011. p. 22). Thus, to avoid such mistakes and their grief consequences, a company should be careful when arriving at a new market and conquer it step by step, with an understanding of it.
An example of a company that has succeeded in conquering an unfamiliar market is McDonald’s. Being a U.S. company, it has two-thirds of its revenues from outside the United States (David, 2011). Thus, it successfully built its restaurants in various countries, including Russia, conquering their markets and satisfying its customers. McDonald’s considers the local language, culture, and development level when creating its marketing strategies in each particular country. As written in The Art of War, the company’s representatives analyze local competitors and seek advantages that allow McDonald’s to overthrow them. It creates competitive workplaces for locals, enabling them to work and earn good money, which further increases their attractiveness to people and, thus, a competitive advantage. In that way, McDonald’s staff analyzes local markets and uses that information to intervene in them and build its restaurant chains in various countries.
The Battle of Austerlitz
Another battle from the Napoleonic Wars, which took place in 1805, was much more successful for Napoleon and his army than his further 1812 campaign. In this battle, the French military fought with superior forces: combined armies of Prussians, Austrians, and Russians (Luggin & Fink, 2020). They had united to conquer Napoleon, who was seen as a threat to European stability. One can see analogies with companies that join temporarily to stop some larger market player who threatens to push them out of the market (David, 2011). Napoleon managed to win this battle by finding the weak points in the enemy’s defense and using the landscape peculiarities (Battle of Austerlitz | Summary & Facts, 2021). They attacked and captured the plateau at the battlefield, holding back the allies’ armies’ main part. Eventually, the deployment of forces on the plateau got a competitive advantage for Napoleon, and his army managed to defeat the allies’ armies.
This battle shows the lesson about reaching victory even in the case of united enemy forces with a surpassing number of people. Like Napoleon, one should analyze the competitors’ strategies and find their strengths and weaknesses (Simeone, 2020). Then, one should find the best niche for their business and develop it there, similar to Napoleon, who deployed his forces on the plateau. According to another excerpt from The Art of War, “when you do decide to challenge another company (or army), much calculating, estimating, analyzing, and positioning brings triumph” (David, 2011. p. 22). It applies both to armies and companies, which should carefully evaluate their movements to reach success.
An example of a company that has reached the advantage by following those rules is Walt Disney. The company is admired worldwide for its quality and high film and character production standards. Its ethical standards are impressive and are recognized as one of the highest among all companies (David, 2011). Thus, company workers are highly responsible and do their work well, be it video production, communication with customers, or maintaining zero waste emissions. Walt Disney searches for a competitive advantage in various fields, from media production to amusement parks, and maintains its strengths using well-developed animated characters. It is in concordance with Sun Tzu’s writing, where one must do calculations and estimations before moving into a new position or a new market in the case of the business strategy. Its competitors usually cannot reach Disney’s level of character and film quality; thus, its positions remain stable.
Discussion
One can see that war and business have many common qualities and elements. Both processes aim to achieve a competitive advantage and win the competition, reaching their particular aims. For war, a typical objective is conquering a critical strategic object, for example, a mine, which may generate more resources for the conqueror. For the business, it is the successful production of goods or services and their subsequent realization by selling to the customer, earning money for them.
The business strategy differs from the military, but it has a similar core: reaching an advantage and defending it. Military strategies aim to defeat the enemy directly, while business ones intend to beat the competitor by taking its market share. To reach that, corporate workers should do their job well and do as little harm as possible to society, the environment, and themselves (David, 2011). Thus, military ethics require discipline and severity to reach its goals, while business ethics should consider various aspects, such as corporate responsibility.
The main difference between business and military strategies is that one can call the war a zero-sum game. It means that only one party should win, and the other one should lose and be conquered: similar to the chess game, for example (Simeone, 2020). On the contrary, business strategies are usually not about zero-sum games: they allow cooperation where both parties win by combining their forces to produce better goods. During the war, collaboration with the enemy can be recognized as treachery; in business, cooperation with competitors is common and well-developed practice, usually beneficial for both parties (David, 2011). In that way, the business allows much more flexible execution and implementation of various strategies than the war, and its consequences are more productive and constructive.
Conclusion
Overall, learning war strategy may help make business management more effective. Similar to warfare, there is active competition between companies and elements of military strategy useful for businesses to win it. Examples are competitor and market analyses, which allow seeing how to make the company better than other companies. War propaganda, which raises soldiers’ morale, is similar to marketing which attracts people to become the company’s customers. However, the specific of war and business is different: in the war, one should defeat the competitor, who is the enemy. In the business activity, the company should push the competitor out of the market by making goods and services better than it is, rather than by direct attack. It opens many possibilities for cooperation instead of fighting to make better products for people while earning more money. Thus, while military strategy can enrich business strategy, its usage in business is much more diverse and constructive than in the army.
References
Aćimović, S., Mijušković, V., & Golubović, M. (2021). Military logistics vs. Business logistics: A comparative analysis. Economic Analysis, 54(1), 118–138. Web.
Battle of Austerlitz | Summary & facts. (2021). Encyclopedia Britannica. Web.
Battle of Borodino | European history. (2021). Encyclopedia Britannica. Web.
David, F. R. (2011). Strategic management: Concepts and cases (13th ed.). Pearson.
Fawzia, U., & Wardhani, B. (2020). The identification of “The art of war” military strategy on Netflix’s business strategy. Jurnal Global & Strategis, 14(1), 143. Web.
Luggin, J., & Fink, S. (2020). Battle descriptions as literary texts: A comparative approach (1st ed.). Springer.
Palmatier, R. W., & Crecelius, A. T. (2019). The “First principles” of marketing strategy. AMS Review, 9(1–2), 5–26. Web.
Simeone, L. (2020). Characterizing strategic design processes in relation to definitions of strategy from military, business, and management studies.The Design Journal, 23(4), 515–534. Web.