Being First Can Be a Liability.

1. Being First Can Be a Liability. • Introduction “The times, they are a changing” Bob Dylan, 1960. • Competitive rivalries and competitive advantages • Companies making significant in roads into competitors’ market share. • One of the new economy’s rules is: “Being first is better.” Or “Be there first, be there fast and you win.”

2. Being First Can Be a Liability. • VisiCalc was the first major personal- computer spreadsheet. VisiCalc lost to Lotus 1-2-3 who lost to Excel. (Lotus did sell to IBM). • First laptop was from Osborne. • Apple’s Newton was introduced before the Palm Pilot creators had their first meeting. • Boeing didn’t pioneer the commercial jet. DeHavilland did. But 7 of their first 21 jets crashed. Boeing was slower, invested in safer, more reliable planes.

3. Being First Can Be a Liability. • AOL lagged behind Prodigy. In ’92, Prodigy had 2M members; AOL had 200,000. • American Express came eight (8) years after Diner’s card. • Starbuck’s didn’t pioneer high-end coffee stores. • Wal-Mart didn’t pioneer discount retailing. They were just better.

4. Being First Can Be a Liability. • But…. the first company to find a global market is always at an advantage over competitors making the same discovery later. Keegan, Global Marketing Management. • Merck was one of the first companies to figure out how to shorten FDA’s approval time. Gained considerable profits by arriving in the market earlier.

5. Being First Can Be a Liability. Wrap-up • For years, Kodak had sold X-ray film to hospital lab technicians, but slow and late in noticing that the purchasing decisions shifted to the hospital administrators. • No ironclad law, but most highly successful companies go thru a life cycle. • They grow; mature; get big; and bloat.

6. Being First Can Be a Liability. Wrap-up • After making their founders and early investors rich, the companies are lucky to settle into a steady, unsuccessful earnings stream. Some of them disappear and others like General Motors struggle. • Others like General Electric (GE) figure out ways to beat the system. • Intel first foray into consumer was a flop with the digital watch in 1970.

7. Being First Can Be a Liability. Wrap-up • PC buyers and makers pay a premium for Intel: That’s a clear indication of Intel’s branding strategy works. • Some 1,500 PC makers participate in two Intel co-op marketing programs (Intel Inside): The rebate program. Get a 6% rebate on chip purchases in return for putting the logo on the PCs and in the ads. • Pays 2/3 of the cost of a print ad and 50% for broadcast.

8. Being First Can Be a Liability. Wrap-up From Andy Grove Time Magazines Man of the Year in 1997 and from his book “Only the Paranoid Survive”. • Timing is everything. • If you undertake changes while your company is still healthy your on-going business forms a protective bubble in which you can experiment with new ways of doing business.

9. Being First Can Be a Liability. • Many marketers obsess about “brand maintenance” introducing consumers to the next big thing, like Apple’s iPod or Red Bull. • What we really mean is being first in the mind, not in the marketplace. • “Anybody can be first, but it takes good marketing thinking to get into the mind first.” Adv Age columnist and author, Al Reis

10. Being First Can Be a Liability. Wrap-up From Andy Grove Time Magazine, Man of the Year in 1997 and from his book “Only the Paranoid Survive”. …You can save much of your company’s strength, your employees, and your strategic position.

11. Being First Can Be a Liability.