When you can use business stratagem: “kill with borrowed knife”?

 When your business is just picking up, you are lower in the pecking order and cannot even think of any offensive, let alone banish envious competitors prowling like wolves in your neighbourhood. You have to tread carefully and artfully to deflect their manoeuvres. Here comes timely help from Chinese 36 stratagem! 

Sun Tzu said: “If you are limited in your own strength, then borrow the strength of the enemy. If you cannot neutralize an enemy, borrow an enemy's knife to do so. If you have no generals, borrow those of the enemy”. That sums up the Third stratagem of the 36 Chinese Stratagems: kill with borrowed knife.

Your current situation can be summed up in two scenarios:

a)  You lack sufficient strength in terms of finance, manpower, production and marketing resources to compete head-on with opponents. Whatever little you have, you have got to preserve for future use rather than deploying these at present.

b) Even if you have the temerity to use limited and precious resources, your business strategist cautions that prevailing situation is not favourable for the use of own assets. He implores that you be more frugal in expending the deep pockets.

There are five specific ways this stratagem can be operationalized:

1. Use the enemy’s own strength against them. Pepsi Cola learnt vigorous marketing from Coca Cola and used same against it

2. Trick an ally or competitor to wage business warfare against a company that privately entertains or publicly declares its intention to mount offensive against you

3. Bring internal dissension in the corporate management of your opponent. You act like a hidden hand in bringing about strife within the boardroom.

4. Bribe a C-Level officer such as CMO, CTO to turn traitor and become a whistle blower of malfeasance occurring amongst the opponent’s management team.

5. Poach a vital guy who is in charge of product innovation, research & development or technology. In the alternative get one know-all guy from the opposite side, to spill the beans for you so that you can secretly mount business warfare using cyber space to put most of their systems out of order or in extreme situations destroy them without any trace.

 

Cheers!

 

Muthu Ashraff Rajulu

Business Strategist

Mobile: + 94 777 265677

E-mail:   cosmicgems@gmail.com

Blog:   Business Strategist