"Fast Follower". (Part 1)
As an entrepreneur or an entrepreneurial business,
there is nothing better, than creating a new
product or service, that no one has ever seen
before, and turning it into a blockbuster
commercial success.
There is however another path to success, and
this is called, the "fast follower":
There are a lot of organizations who are
successful, through the ability to see what others
have done, and then moving quickly to do the
same thing; this is the "fast follower".
If you look at great companies like Microsoft or
Apple, they are not necessarily the first to come
up with a new idea. They are "fast followers"; if
they see someone doing something, that has
potential, they either buy it or build something
similar; only they do it better.
Our company did not invent "Mobile
Money" (Ecocash), it was invented in Kenya, by
Safaricom. As soon as I heard about it, I did two
things:
-first I checked to see, if there was a patent
protecting the idea. It turned out they had not
protected it.
-I then put a top team to research the concept.
The key to being a "fast follower", is the ability to
move with lightening speed.
The Chinese are masters of the "fast follower"
model:
When they see something in the West, like Yahoo,
Facebook, Uber, Google, their entrepreneurs
quickly follow, to build their own.
A Fast Follower, never allows a competitor to
settle in, on a new innovation without a response.
I can tell you, that if we do not respond, it is
usually because we do not think much of the new
product or service. Otherwise, we try to respond
hard and fast, using better management and
execution skills than our competitor, with
devastating efficiency. It's part of the game.
So next time you see a new product or service, in
another market, don't just admire:
Be a "fast follower".

To be continued!