You so often hear the big corporates saying “We welcome competition” when they are threatened by someone like Wallmart or Cell C or the like. What they’re really saying is “We’re scared as all hell, but we don’t want you to know it”. 

But if you give it some thought, you will probably agree that competition really is good for you. Why? If for no other reason than that it shakes you up, makes you think and gets the old creative juices flowing. After all, who is going to innovate if they control the market?

And it’s not only competition from another firm that does the job. How about changes in technology or in market trends. Many is the huge, indestructible, corporation that fell to its knees because the directors did not see, or did not respond to changes in the market. Woolworths (the UK one), Edison Records, Polaroid, Comodore Computers, Eastman Kodak, Sears, Sony Walkman, Sun Microsystems, Yahoo, the list goes on. But some companies have been so flexible and innovative that they have continuously re-invented themselves and grown stronger and stronger through the rapid changes that characterise the marketplace in modern times. The one I like best is Wells Fargo. Anyone who is old enough to have watched the old cowboy movies that I was brought up on will remember that Wells Fargo was the stagecoach company that carried mail all over the USA in the cowboys and Indians days. Did they survive? You bet they did! Take a look at their website . What got them from where they were to where they are now? Competition!