Anticipating your opponent: It's key to any sport or business. But unlike
sports, where there's a winner and loser, you can have win-win and lose-lose
situations in business.
When the competition views your actions as beneficial or at least nonthreatening,
it's less likely to retaliate. Conversely, seeing your competitors' actions
in the same light can avert a costly price war. Visualizing and anticipating
your competitor's moves are the venue of a branch of mathematics called
game theory - the study of competitive interaction. Companies use it to
anticipate their competitors' reactions in order to improve their own decisions.
Last March, the Federal Communications Commission completed the largest
application of game theory - the $ 7 billion auction of wireless personal
communication services.
Game theory helps firms better assess their own negotiating position. They
can also learn how to change the game they're playing rather than just play
the existing one.
Having game theory in your corporate ''bag of tricks'' can mean the difference
between success and failure. ''Our company only gets to bid on deals once
in a generation,'' said Dallas Luby, executive vice president and chief
marketing officer at Stamford, Conn.-based General Re Corp., a property/casualty
reinsurer. ''We want the best information possible.''
Game Theory also can help firms look beyond the traditional roles of competitors,
customers and suppliers, says Barry J. Nalebuff, management professor
at the Yale School of Management and author of the forthcoming book on game
theory, ''Co-opetition'' (co-authored by Adam M. Brandenburger, business
strategy professor at the Harvard Business School). Too often, firms ''leave
out complementors.''
''Sometimes, what you do helps me,'' Nalebuff added. An example is the development
of a new airplane. They are ''too expensive for one firm to have/develop
alone. Airlines share the development cost.''
It's important to note, however, that firms must avoid collusion.
Another reason game theory is catching on is that firms don't want to be
at a competitive disadvantage because they failed to use the tool. At General
Re, ''Game theory is a significant part of senior management education,''
Luby said.
The real benefit of game theory is finding areas of cooperation, Luby adds.
It helps answer the question: ''What's everybody's motivation in the game?''
Allocentrism - putting yourself in your competitor's shoes - is only one
side of the equation. Firms must also look at the added value they bring
to the table, Nalebuff says. The Holland Sweetener Co. probably wishes it
had done so. It tried to compete with Monsanto's aspartame product, NutraSweet,
by building a plant to make the product.
All Holland Sweetener succeeded in doing was to make the aspartame market
competitive. Coca Cola Co. and PepsiCo Inc. signed long-term contracts with
Monsanto prior to the patent expiration on NutraSweet. They both did so
at significantly lower prices.
As it turned out, the NutraSweet name had a great deal of value to both
Coke and Pepsi something Holland Sweetener couldn't capitalize on.
The absence of any added value doesn't preclude a company from playing in
the game, Nalebuff says. But if you don't have added value, ''You had better
realize it and get paid upfront.''
By creating a viable competitor for NutraSweet, Holland Sweetener certainly
did Coke and Pepsi a great service. But there are instances when game theory
''is not beneficial to anyone,'' said Avinash K. Dixit, economics professor
at Princeton University. In designing the FCC's PCS auction, the government
worked hard to ensure productive bidding. The reason? ''Each bidder could
have benefited from lying in the grass,'' said Evan R. Kwerel, senior economist
at the FCC.
The auction consisted of 112 rounds of open bids. To prevent disruptive
bids, each bidder was required to maintain active participation in the auction,
Kwerel says. In addition, firms that withdrew bids were subject to penalties.
Like the bids in the FCC auction, the actions firms take are interpreted
by their competitors as signals. They convey what's important to the company.
''Firms may give false signals'' to confuse competitors, Dixit said. ''But
other firms will not give much weight to signals that can easily be mimicked.''
Game theory helps sensitize companies to such actions as false signaling.
''It safeguards you from being taken advantage of,'' Dixit said.
So what's in store for game theory? ''There will be more cooperation between
buyer and seller than you've ever seen before,'' Luby said. As a result,
''more and more people are going to use game theory.'' Game theory will
continue to grow because of the importance added value plays in business
today, Nalebuff says. It ''helps companies define their added value.'''
And firms will have ''to give up old habits such as thinking that business
is war and that they must beat the competition,'' Nalebuff added. ''This
is true for card games and sports, but not in business.''