12 Essential Principles for Winning the War for Customers
Volume 17, Number 4 Article by Pradeep Banerjee December, 2005
Sun Tzu: Strategies for Marketing – 12 Essential Principles for Winning the War for Customers : By Gerald A Michaelson and Steven A Michaelson, Tata McGraw-Hill, 2004, pp. 244, Price: Rs. 19 :
A book written two thousand five hundred years ago on the art of war needs to be extraordinarily insightful to retain its relevance for our times. The Art of War, on which this book is based, is an old text that has survived because of its acceptance by generations of readers. The author himself provides the rationale for his choice of topic thus: ‘War is a matter of vital importance to the state, a matter of life and death, the road either to survival or to ruin. Hence, it is imperative that it be thoroughly studied.’ The seriousness of the matter, in combination with the effectiveness of coverage is clearly the secret of its enduring value. The book was translated into French in 1782, and into English in 1905. It has been studied in the West for its historical relevance and as part of diplomatic and military research.
The emphasis on strategy and the clarity of approach of the ancient treatise has found support among writers of management literature. War, according to Sun Tzu, is to be handled not through numerical supremacy, but by adoption of strategies and tactics relevant to the prevailing situation. To the general, warfare is a journey, and winning a war involves an accurate assessment of one’s strengths and weakness, as well as those of the enemy, and adapting one’s strengths as required. The aim of the strategic general must be, if possible, ‘to take all under heaven intact through strategic superiority. Thus, their troops are not worn out and their triumph will be complete’.
The Michaelsons believe that ‘within Sun Tzu’s principles are the foundations for understanding the strategic principles of modern marketing’. The objective is ‘to use Sun Tzu’s timeless wisdom to crystallize and reinforce concepts for success in selling’. While adopting the work of Sun Tzu as the basic plank to develop a contemporary perspective and approach to marketing and selling, the authors draw additional support from reference to other contemporaneous works as ‘Wu Chi on The Art of War and ‘The Precepts of Ssu Ma Jung Chu’. Sun Tzu emphasises the strategic approach to war, keeping it distinct from the actual action. Sun Tzu points out that, ‘to win one hundred victories in one hundred battles is not the acme of skill. To subdue the enemy without fighting is the supreme excellence. Thus, the best policy in war is to attack the enemy’s strategy’. In keeping with this spirit, the authors explain that the two books under review are written ‘not with the belief that business is war, but rather that we can find useful business applications in a study of military strategy’.
What separates the professional from the novice is the manner in which the principles are practised; the former adopts and adapts these principles and routes them through the channel of judgment to act on the issues, while the other ignores the bedrock that the principles offer. The authors have studied The Art of War to distil from it twelve principles that govern action. The application of the principles to the planning function is ‘strategy’; the application of the principles to rendering of the plan is identified as ‘tactics’. These principles form a foundation for sales and marketing strategies.
The books under review follow Sun Tzu’s format, with short chapters on particular processes of warfare. The first chapter of The Art of War, for instance, refers to ‘Laying Plans’. By comparing the attributes of the warring sides on specific criteria like capabilities of commanders, quality of training, inventory of weapons and terrain, Sun Tzu writes, ‘I can forecast victory or defeat’, though formulas are based on probabilities rather than certainties. The Michaelsons’ first principle addresses the question ‘who do you do for’, which makes ‘Honor the Customer’ the first principle. The domain having been identified, the following eleven principles are driven by the objective of reaching out to service the first principle. These include clarity on the market one is operating in, the objective and the intention, pursuing these with tenacity, taking the offensive, and using the element of surprise. The marketing functionary needs to understand how to concentrate the resources at his command in a nimble footed manner so as to enable effective deployment of resources. That which transforms the energies of many into a single-minded force is a command structure and the manner in which this structure is guided towards its goal is an outcome of the leadership that imbues the structure with the necessary zeal to perform. The last principle is that the approach should be kept simple for ‘Simple marketing plans, messages, and ideas communicate best’.
The book on selling strategies holds that the crux of successful selling is winning without conflict. This is derived from Sun Tzu’s principle of attack by stratagem, and is an enriched process with the probability of success. The process begins with looking into oneself and taking an inventory of personal strengths so as to organise them to meet the demands of the situation. Sun Tzu’s advice to operate from a high ground when in war is extended by the author’s exhortation to ‘seek the mental high ground’. At the level of practice, they suggest mapping one’s abilities and motivations onto the sales process. This applies to both the individual and to teams. The self-preparatory work is to be followed by planning, because ‘Hope is not a method of wining sales; sound strategy is a method for winning sales’. The sequencing of sales strategy primed by planning and followed by tactics is accordingly the recommended route for both the initiated and the student. The mode in which these are to be performed at the level of practice forms the major part of the text on selling methodologies.
These two books provide a lot of inputs of the ‘how do you do it’ variety, accompanied by useful notes on ‘how have they done it’ from field level practitioners familiar with the situations described. The books will provide interesting reading to diverse reader categories. To the academic, the novel approach to marketing and selling could catalyse out of the box thinking, while to practitioners, both novices and seasoned professionals, it offers a new way of viewing an old problem and new strategies for achieving their objectives.
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