Page 36 - (DK) The Business Book

34 34 GAINING AN EDGE

IN CONTEXT
First-movers have no competition and have the potential
FOCUS to become market leaders...
Competitive advantage
KEY DATES
1988 US scholars David
Montgomery and Marvin
Lieberman write “First-Mover
...but unless the market is static, and technological
Advantage,” outlining the
innovation is limited, the risk of failure is high.
competitive advantages
of being first to market.
1995 Amazon.com launches,
the first of a new breed of
online retailers.
Later entrants enter a recognized market and
1997–2000 Adopting the
know what mistakes to avoid.
“be first” mantra, dot-com
companies race to market;
many fail when the promised
advantages do not materialize.
1998 Montgomery and
Lieberman question their They stand to benefit most in a rapidly changing market,
original findings in their paper, in which technological innovation is advanced.
“First-Mover (Dis)Advantages.”
2001 Amazon.com returns
its first profit. The company’s
first-mover advantages were
significant, but a good business In order to gain an edge,
model mattered more. either be first, or be better.

f you need to buy a book business to enter the online retail competitive edge in the market,
online, which website do market, establishing its brand a business needs either to be first,
I you visit first? If you want to name, and building a loyal or it needs to be better.
research the author of the book, customer base. Google, by contrast,
which search engine do you use? was by no means first. When Market pioneers
The answers, most probably, are Google launched in 1998, the The benefits of being first into a
Amazon and Google, respectively. market was already dominated by market are known as “first-mover
Such is the dominance of these two several large players; Google’s edge advantage,” a term popularized in
Internet giants that their names came from offering a superior 1988 by Stanford Business School
define their respective markets. product—not only was it faster, but professor David Montgomery and
Both organizations have a it produced more accurate search his co-author, Marvin Lieberman.
significant edge in the markets results than any of its competitors. Although introduced a decade
they lead, but they achieved that Getting into a market first has previously, Montgomery and
dominance by different means. significant advantages, but there Lieberman’s idea took particular
Amazon, launched in 1995, gained are also benefits to being second. hold during the dot-com bubble
its advantage by being the first The key is that in order to gain a between 1997 and 2000. Spurred