Using “Sunzi Bingfa, 孙子兵法”, Art Of War By Sun Tzu In Small Business
Depicting The Common Struggles Of SME, Small Medium Enterprise Today
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I sat leisurely in a cafe one afternoon sipping a cup of cappuccino and it was then this ’coffeelicious' (a representation for a delicious cup of coffee) that triggered my thoughts; I recalled my father’s time in the 1960s where Singapore was still a developing country and urbanization was slow in progress. Many from the 'Kampong' ( ‘Kampong’ is a Malay word which means small village or hut or may loosely refer to a group of people from the rural site) would gather in a shabby little coffee shop, chit-chatting, gossiping, or soliciting their businesses with the neighborhood. The only publicity the coffee shop owner obtained was by the word of mouth' from his patrons to frequent the shop and this was how the business started to roll in.
In contrast to our time-driven modern society, we are so fortunate to be equipped with sophisticated devices and platforms, channeling sales to the business by keeping ahead of our business rivals with digital campaigns. Yet, a business can still fail. Our ancestors would not understand such as well. Here comes the big 'WHY'.
As time evolved, so are people as well as the cost of living. Modernization led to a faster pace and quality of living. Therefore, a cup of coffee 🍵 that satisfied a layman will not be sufficient for a professional in today’s context. In short, environment and trend had brought upon changes to the consumers' behavior.
Typically, a ‘brick and mortar' business model may not fully fit into this modern society. The current trend of 'brick and click' model is what offers vast opportunities to the business. However, the success of a 'brick and click' model depends largely on its integrations or hybrid operations of both models to yield peak results.
In addition, before a cafe owner attracts business to the shop, he has to consider the rental and labor costs which consumed most of his capital. Next comes the advertising. Hundreds of dollars may be spent on advertisements to increase sales without actual success. Hence, a strategy has to be in place before the businessman hits a loss.
In the above example, there could be a reason or reasons to the failure; the quality of the product i.e. coffee, in this case, is not up to the mark, or perhaps the pricing is wrong or even a stronger competitor became an obstacle.
Sun Tzu, a man of wisdom, an ancient Chinese military general and strategist, also a writer and philosophize was famous for his strategem and his tactics were being used in many modern businesses. I am going to shed some new light in relating his tactics to modern businesses. The information here serves as a reference and there are no hard and fast rules in the deployment. The game is in your hand.
Sun Tzu, Chapter 11
There are 13 chapters in the Art of War by Sun Tzu and using all of the tactics is a complex art.
Nonetheless, the quote from chapter 11 caught my eyes.
In many businesses, owners faced rigorous market competition. Consider this scenario; The cafe owner opens a shop at the corner of a street and has a rival just around his shop and his opponent shop’s is in the center of a bustling city. His opponent has many years of establishment and offers coffee at a lower price than him.
Now, is the cafe owner going to lower his price to compete with his opponent or sell other stuff which is unique against his opponent?
Not every business needs a monopoly especially if it is a small business with scarce resources and low publicity. Hence, the cafe owner may think of ways to draw customers to his shop by forming alliances with other businesses in the vicinity.
In other words, creating a supply-demand chain model, an agglomeration of common business interest will inject new growth opportunities for his business. E.g. The cafe owner simply finds an opportunity to sell supplement products by showcasing them in his shop as many fitness and gyms patrons drop by after their gym sessions in the vicinity. Subsequently, the cafe owner gathers feedback to improve his service and quality of food.
Sun Tzu, Chapter 11
“On serious ground, gather in plunder. In difficult ground, keep steadily on the march.”
Sun Tzu strategy in the above mentioned where the terrain slows you down, keep going, for to be caught, your fight here could be hazardous.
In many business, especially small businesses, obstacles come in all directions which often mobilized the team. E.g. There could happen to have many stakeholders having different decisions and directions to “take the flight off". The struggle to reach swift consensus becomes tough and it could be effectively resolved by using the state of the art technology to get data or statistics for analytical decision whenever possible. Sun Tzu's tactics help business leaders to understand the risk of staying stagnant as the business could easily pass an opportunity or be taken advantage of by their competitors.
The 3 Steps In Your Business
As mentioned earlier, there are no hard and fast rules to deploy strategies in your business. I shall conclude in the 3 steps below,
“Input, Process, Output".
- No dude shall set up a business without proper business planning strategies which serve as an input to catalyst the growth.
- The execution of the business strategies is often the most challenging which will need constant monitoring, quality improvement, and adaptable changes. This process is a measurement of the output.
- The outcome of the business execution process does not always necessarily yield successful results where iteration of the process and analysis of the gaps are crucial to achieving a successful output.
