Summary: Co-Opetition

Review and Analysis of Brandenburger and Nalebuff's Book

BusinessNews Publishing

• Publisher: Must Read Summaries
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9782806239211
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Management
• Index: Business

The must-read summary of Adam Brandenburger and Barry Nalebuff's book: `Co-Opetition: A Revolutionary Mindset That Combines Competition and Co-operation`.

This complete summary of the ideas from Adam Brandenburger and Barry Nalebuff's book `Co-Opetition` shows how to combine the advantages of competition and co-operation to create a new dynamic that can be used to generate profits and change your business environment for the better. The authors explain how you can use this strategy to actively change the way your business works and start creating your own opportunities for future success. By following their advice, you can increase flexibility in business deals and find win-win growth opportunities.

Added-value of this summary: 
• Save time 
• Understand the key concepts 
• Increase your business knowledge 

To learn more, read `Co-Opetition` and discover how you can start taking control of your company's destiny.

Summary of Co-Opetition (Adam Brandenburger and Barry Nalebuff)

PART 1
CO-OPETITION AND THE GAME OF BUSINESS

Main Idea

In its purest form, business can be considered as a game in which money represents points won or lost. The person or company which gathers the greatest numbers of points wins.

The biggest opportunities in business don’t come from playing the game better than everyone else – they come from changing the fundamental nature of the game itself to your advantage.

Business strategy, and the concept of co-opetition, is designed to provide a framework by which companies can gain a sustainable competitive advantage by changing the game to their own advantage.

Supporting Ideas

Concept of Co-opetition

Co-opetition is part competition and part cooperation. It describes the fact that in today’s business environment, most companies can achieve more success in a dynamic industry than they ever could working alone.

Specifically, when companies work together, they can create a much larger and more valuable market than they ever could by working individually. Companies then compete with each other to determine who gets the largest share of that market.

Co-opetition allows for the real-world business situation that there can be multiple winners in the marketplace. Business, unlike war, is not a winner takes all proposition. The objective is to maximize your return on investment – regardless of how well or how poorly other people or other companies perform.

The Value-Net

To visualize the business environment, consider the following value net:

Suppliers provide resources to all companies within your industry.

Competitors, from the customer’s perspective, are all those companies whose products or services make whatever your company offers seem less valuable.

Complementors, again from the customer’s perspective, provide products or services that add value to whatever your company offers. Example: computer hardware and software companies are complementors – their individual products are worth more when combined.

The biggest commercial opportunities and greatest profits don’t come simply from playing the game better than everyone else. They actually come from expanding the game from whatever it is at present to a new game that is bigger, better and more valuable for everyone involved.

To change the game of business, you have to alter one or more of its five basic elements:

1. Players
   You can alter the mix of competitors or complementors for your company.
2. Added Values
   Whichever company adds the most value to the value net holds the power. Change the added value of the various players and you change who holds the power, and the game itself.
3. Rules
   If you can change the rules by which the game is played you can influence who will be most successful. In business, the rules are negotiable.
4. Tactics
   By altering the players’ perceptions, you can change the outcome of the game. Perceptions are shaped by tactics.
5. Scope
   By understanding how other commercial games influence this game, you can take advantage of any implicit boundaries other parties are using to improve your own competitive position, and change the game.

Key Thoughts

“You have to be able to compete and cooperate at the same time.”

– Ray Noorda, founder, Novell

“On any given day, AT&T may find Motorola to be a supplier, a buyer, competitor or partner.”

– Gary Hamel and C.K. Prahalad

“When I am getting ready to reason with a man, I spend one-third of my time thinking about myself and what I am going to say, and two-thirds thinking about him and what he is going to say.”

– Abraham Lincoln

“The ability to see the other side of the situation as the other aside sees it, as difficult as it may be, is one of the most important skills a negotiator can posses. It is not enough to know they see things differently. If you want to influence them, you also need to understand emphatically the power of their point of view and to feel the emotional force with which they believe it.”

– Roger Fisher and William Ury

“Philosophers have only interpreted the world. The point, however, is to change it.”

– Karl Marx

“It is not enough to succeed. Others must fail.”

– Gore Vidal

“You don’t have to blow out the other fellow’s light to let your own shine.”

– Bernard Baruch

PART 2
CHANGING THE GAME OF BUSINESS

ELEMENT #1: Players

Main Idea

Any time the players in a value net change, the overall market value of the entire net is either worth more or less.

The...