Presupposition # 5: “The winner doesn’t take it all”
Are you in to trotting or to cycling? Then you know that the best position is just behind the # 1.
What about the old saying; the winner takes it all? Of course it’s still relevant however there are a lot of examples in business where the number two position is the better one. Sometimes when the challenging company reach the number one position, it’s not prepared for it.
The classical example is Avis with their “We try harder” from 1962. When they became number one the company changed their pay off, and the perception of the customer became someting different. This wasn’t the challenging company they were used to. In a very short time Herz outperformed Avis. Avis went back to the We try harder motto, became prosperous and they still use it in these days.
This phenomenon has been noticed before. Back in 2003 a Swedish author Thomas Ahréns wrote a book (translation directly from the Swedish version) called “To grow with success – the number two wins” . Recently there has been a new book released which focuses on the issue called “Secondomics” by Graham Bower where Apple is scrutinised.
Why do we have indulgence with the challenging companies attitudes and products?
Why couldn’t e.g. Microsoft have made the “I’m a Mac and I’m a PC” commercials?
Why do we have these presuppositions?