Judo Strategy: Turning Your Competitors' Strength to Your Advantage [Englisch] [Gebundene Ausgabe]

I like metaphors as much as the next person. They help me see a situation in new and more revealing ways. However, that only occurs when I am familiar with the metaphor. Even after reading this book, I still don't understand enough about judo to grasp many of the points the book is making. Perhaps if it were combined with a video, photographs, or illustrations, it would have worked for me. On the other hand, if you practice judo and work for a dot com company, this is the book for you.

The book's other weakness is that over 70 percent of the examples come from Internet, software, semiconductor, and the computer industries. If you work in another industry, I suspect that you will have a hard time translating the concepts into specific tactics for what your business should do. For example, how does this strategy apply to network marketing, fast food, and motion pictures?

The authors did a lot of research on judo, both in the U.S. and in Japan to write the book. So if you always wanted to learn a little more about that martial art, this book will give you an introduction into the history and philosophy of judo.

The book is organized into three sections. The first explains the principles. The second section provides three examples (Palm-Handspring, RealNetworks, and CNET). The final section talks about how to use size to crush judo strategies (the sumo strategy) and more advanced ideas for judo strategy.

Judo strategy focuses on answering the question of why Palm was able to prosper against Microsoft while Netscape faltered. So if you keep that comparison in mind, you will get a good sense of much of the book's content. I liked the way the authors used "failure" examples to help reinforce their points.

The principles of judo strategy involve movement, balance, and leverage. For movement, the authors suggest avoiding attention ("the Puppy Dog Ploy") as Transmeta did with its new chips, redefining the competitive space, and being fast to execute. For balance, the subpoints are gripping your opponent (as eBay did with AOL), avoiding tit-for-tat, and pushing when pulled (and vice versa). Leverage involves turning your opponents assets and accounts against him or her (as a barrier to change), and using competitors' partners and competitors as resources.

These are all sound ideas, but in most markets the primarily issues are not competitors . . . but customers and finding better ways to attract and serve them. The concepts in this book are a good adjunct to the type of high-technology marketing thinking that Geoffrey Moore has done, but will rarely provide enough of a base for a whole strategy. Of all these concepts, I thought that avoiding tit-for-tat in new developments was the most helpful one.

I suspect that a book built around the metaphor of the underdog overcoming the dominant company, such as David and Goliath, would have worked better than judo for a book on this general subject.

Given the metaphor and the industry focus, the book is very well done. So my observations relate to the concept of the book rather than its execution.

Perhaps a good test of this concept will be to see how well the book sells compared to other strategy books. Time will tell.

When have you seen underdogs turn that position into a triumph in nontechnology businesses? What were the lessons?

Consider your competitor's size and strength among your potential resources for strategy.