Page 168 - (DK) The Business Book

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IN CONTEXT
IF I HAD ASKED FOCUS
Market leaders
PEOPLE WHAT KEY DATES
1780s British inventor Richard
Arkwright devises a complete
THEY WANTED, mechanized system for the
production of yarn on an
industrialized scale.
THEY WOULD HAVE 1860s US general Nathan

Bedford Forrest claims the key
SAID FASTER HORSES to military success is “to get
there first with the most men.”

LEADING THE MARKET 1989 Dutch businessman Arie
de Geus suggests that a
company’s only sustainable
competitive advantage is its
ability to learn faster than its
competitors.
1994 Al Ries and Jack Trout
publish The 22 Immutable
Laws of Marketing, in which
they outline the advantages of
being first to market.

usiness logic often dictates:
hold back; let someone else
B go first, incur the costs, and
make mistakes. But there are many
examples of significant advantages
for companies first off the mark.
A company that leads the way
into a new market gains a
competitive advantage, which
might enable it to dominate over the
long term. Richard Arkwright, the
inventor of the modern factory
system, is an example. He devised
the first complete mechanized
system for the spinning of cotton
yarn in the 18th century in Britain.
His patents were overturned just
five years after they were filed, but
his head start ensured that he