Competitive Cycles in a Hyper-Connected World

This chapter presents a competitive framework suggesting a circular perspective in analyzing and managing competitive wars in a hyper-competitive and hyper-connected world. The author uses the expression “competitive cycles” to represent a typical journey of a competitive arena. The journey starts with the status quo, characterized by a direct confrontation on specific success factors (War of Position); eventually, this scenario is disrupted by the game-changing strategy of an insurgent (War of Movement). This leads to the next stage of the journey, the War of Imitation, ending up when the new game finally becomes the new status quo, that is, back to the War of Position. Then everything flows, until a new cycle, with its new rules, will start again. The digital tsunami is adding momentum and clock-speed to competitive cycles. In every moment of a firm's life, then, it is vitally important to be fully aware of its different wars. In fact, behind each of them lies distinctive rationales and dynamics, which call for specific strategic approaches.