China Ceramics Network News (Author: Pan Chunhua ) Xiaoqi is an industry loser with a sense of justice. He has been quietly "moving bricks" in the ceramic industry for more than five years.
Recently, Xiao Qi seems to be particularly cynical, saying to people: "This world is too bad. It’s not cool that such a big brand doesn’t create something original, but instead plagiarizes it! You see, it’s really frustrating that our company has just launched a product that has gained some popularity in the industry. Disdainful!" His words were full of indignation and grievances for the boss.
After a closer look, I realized that it turned out to be a new personalized product that his company was the first to develop and innovate. A large enterprise imitated it in an all-round way. Nowadays, the momentum of the well-known brands of these large companies in the terminals has in turn overshadowed the momentum of Xiaoqi's original company. After Xiaoqi's company learned about it, everyone in the company was extremely unhappy.
So, in the original small company, everyone formed a strategy: tell the industry, tell the market, tell consumers , they are the originals, they are the authentic originators.
Similar examples,if you pay more attention, you will find that they are common in the business world-especially in some manufacturing industries. There are even many similar small original companies that were eventually swept out of the market overnight by large companies with larger scale, wider channels, and more after-sales outlets!
It seems very unfair, right? It even once subverted our usual inherent understanding of "innovation" and "imitation". We usually believe that large companies innovate and small companies imitate. But the truth is that the other way around is more advantageous.
Why?
Let’s look back at Xiaoqi’s incident: the reason why everyone is angry is actually based on a basic understanding. This is also the common understanding of most people: they believe that large companies should be original and small companies are suitable for imitation. But how can it be the other way around? This gap between common psychological cognition and reality has created feelings of indignation, thinking that big companies are too unethical!
In fact, if we put aside this preconception and analyze the actual situation rationally, it is not difficult to find: Small companies innovate and large companies imitate, which is more consistent with the development nature of the two.
One is for development, the other is for survival
First of all: Innovation is a very risky thing. As a huge system, the stability of a large company is very important. Moreover, once it easily enters a high-risk area such as innovation, the losses caused by failure are immeasurable. Secondly, the system of a large company is bloated, and compared with small start-ups, For companies, it is easy to face the problem of "big tail" when innovating; thirdly, large companies themselves have mature, stable and reliable profits and market shares. If they give up these to innovate, unless they understand that the innovative products will definitely succeed and will not fail, will do it.
On the contrary, for small companies, innovation is the only possibility for them to win. After all, if a small company imitates a large company and the product is the same, but the strength, scale, channels, market share, team, etc. of the small company are all inferior to that of the big company - then there is basically no chance of winning. Therefore, the only opportunity is to do something that big companies have never done before, seize the blank areas of big companies, and you can only innovate!
In other words: Innovation, for large companies, is a need for iteration and development; but innovation is The only path that small companies cannot choose.
The intensity of motivation between the two is different. One is for development, the other is for survival! Such a comparison is self-evident.
One has more worries, the other travels lightly
As mentioned above, large companies already have too many, and at the same time they have many concerns. Small businesses are traveling lightly. As the local saying goes, "Those who don't have shoes are not afraid of those who wear shoes!" This also means this.
At the same time, the systems of large enterprises are bloated and difficult to change. For example, in a large enterprise system, if a plan is implemented step by step and approved step by step, the day lily will be cold; but in a start-up small business, the bosses are all capable people. They make quick decisions when they have ideas and make corrections as they go. normal.
No need to go into details about who has the advantage.
Once large companies imitate, it is easier to quickly open up the market
In terms of innovation, large companies face so many restrictions, but in terms of imitation But the advantages are very obvious.
Once a large company sees that something new on the market is well accepted by the market and is basically consistent with its own brand and positioning, imitation is inevitable - unless the leader of the large company is extremely stupid.
Think about it, large companies have great success in terms of teams, channels, market share, They are better than small companies in all aspects such as after-sales and so on. So once they compete with small companies on the same product, is it a sure win?
In fact, everyone is familiar with Tencent’s path to success. When it already had a large scale, it often imitated and copied the start-ups on the market and quickly seized the market, which made it invincible.
In fact, this way of leaders staying ahead through imitation is often a racing strategy in sailing races.
It is the first place in the sailing competition. To always stay ahead in the competition and beat the second place following closely, the strategy adopted by the players is: < span style="color:rgb(63,63,63); font-family:宋体,simsun; font-size:14px">Under the same wind direction and wave conditions, you only need to observe the actions of the second place and immediately Just imitate the second place! In this way, you can basically win.
So, after understanding this logic, how do small businesses succeed?
The answer is: either let go of yourself and immediately seek cooperation with large companies to achieve a win-win situation——For example, sell patents to large companies; Or continue to innovate, and then drink the soup again ——Although it is hard work, it can only be like this. The nightmare is not over until the small business finally grows into a large company and ranks among the big companies.
