Attack Strength Strategy: When to Use It

Attack Strength is a strategy to defend against a strategic competitive threat. When should you consider employing the Attack Strength strategy? There are three gating criteria.

There must first be a strategic competitive threat. This means the competitor must have or potentially have a product or service that may prevent you from reaching your big-picture objectives with a five year horizon. Five years is generally the high-tech strategic planning horizon. Less, and you may well be dealing with a tactical threat, which means a different response is called for. More, and you are probably dreaming, not planning.

The threat does not have to be a current or announced product or service, it may only be a potential threat. For example, Apple's OS X is a potential threat to Windows because Apple might decide to make it available on generic Wintel compatible hardware. Sony Playstation is a potential threat to Windows because it may evolve from a game console to a web browsing appliance.

The threat is usually that the competitor may cause you to miss strategic revenue, profit and/or market-share objectives. Yes, strategic again! The long-term time horizon and big-picture view are what we are dealing with here. For example, Microsoft will defend Windows at all costs, but a threat to its mouse revenue is unlikely to evoke more than tactical response.

The second test for using Attack Strength is that you want its intended outcome. The outcome of a well executed Attack Strength strategy is to make the competitor defend against your attack, diverting money, resources and executive attention away from their threat against you. Microsoft attacks iPod/iTunes with Zune to focus Apple on defending iPod/iTunes instead of competing with Windows with OS X.

Why would you not want the outcome of Attack Strength? You do not want it if the likely result is for the competitor to become even more of a strategic threat. For example, I believe that Dell's entry into the printer market, a classic Attack Strength move against HP, has backfired because HP was strategically committed to competing with Dell computers regardless. If anything, it only served to focus HP's troops more on Dell.

The third criterion for employing Attack Strength is that you have the money, resources, time and focus to execute a long-term response. This is not a quick fix. Do not use Attack Strength if you are not committed to it for the duration if necessary. It will not work and may cause more harm than good if it is abandoned before it has killed the threat. Since some threats never die, this means quite a commitment. Many companies do not have the ability to stick with this strategy.

Oracle's aborted and perhaps ill-conceived Network Computer ploy was an attempt to attack the PC and thus attack Windows, diverting Microsoft resources away from SQL Server, which threatened Oracle's database empire. The attack failed because Oracle could not or would not stay the course.

Assuming the above three tests are passed, you should consider using Attack Strength. You should also consider the alternatives, the subject for a future post.

Here are some examples of the Attack Strength strategy:

Microsoft versus Apple: Why Microsoft Needs Zune
Google versus Microsoft: Google Bamboozles Microsoft
Microsoft versus Sony: Why Microsoft Needs Xbox
IBM versus Microsoft: IBM and Microsoft: Attack By Proxy

Copyright © 2006 Philip Bookman