p.1 Business Wargames is a back-to-basics approach to business strategy for the
executive in the trenches of market warfare, and is about using the principles of military strategy to win battles in the
market-place.
p.2 Companies fail in the market-place because their strategies are ill-conceived, poorly prepared
and badly executed in relation to those of their competitors. All companies... can eventually be
outmanoeuvred in the market-place.
p.2-3 Business has always been competitive, but now more than ever companies require
strategies which truly reflect the combative nature of the market-place. The closest analogy to the current market
conditions is war.
p.3 Business Wargames has been written with two aims. First, to provide the executive with a concise
reading of the wide range of strategic manoeuvres available to any company using the principles of military strategy; and
to encourage creativity and a broadening of the approach to strategy selection as a means to break out of the inflexible,
institutionalized, analytical approaches to strategy used by many companies. Second, to identify the common failures to appreciate
the realities of market combat
p.5 Business is simply about winning battles in the market-place by outmanoeuvring an opponent to obtain
a superior profit position.
p.11 Strategy is the set of policies used for the conduct of conflict. Since both armies
and companies are competitive systems trying to secure an advantage over adversaries, they are conflict oriented and strategy
is used as the policy tool for planning aggression against opponents. The sole object of armies and companies in conflict
is to outmanoeuvre their opponents and gain a superior position on the battlefield or in the market-place. [JLJ -
or on the game board]
Simply defined, strategy is the organized deployment of resources to achieve specific
objectives against competition from rival organizations.
p.12 Grand strategy is a set of policies developed by governments to guide the conduct of war.
p.13 It is a set of policies adopted by the board of directors which guides the scope and direction of a
company. Corporate strategy is the central management tool for coping with both the internal and external changes that a firm
faces
p.15, 17 Sequential strategies are successive steps, each contingent on the preceding step,
that lead to the final objective... Cumulative strategies are a collection of seemingly random, but planned,
actions which eventually create crushing results. [JLJ -This follows J.C. Wylie, as outlined in Military Strategy, p.24
http://mysite.verizon.net/vzesz4a6/current/id979.html]
p.129 'A Weapon is defensive or offensive depending on which end of it is pointing at you'. Premier Aristide
Briand (1930)
p.131 The value of weaponry is time-limited since an enemy can develop counter weapons and duplicate weaponry.
p.183 'There is no 'science' of war, and there never will be any. There are many sciences
war is concerned with. But war itself is not a science; war is practical art and skill'. Leon Trotsky (1924)
p.187 'It is simply not possible to construct a model for the art of war since models create an absurd difference
between theory and practice'. Carl von Clausewitz
p.188 More recently, computers have been used to translate complex concepts into explicit dynamic
models of market behaviour to simulate the reaction of the market-place to change... In practice, sophisticated plans,
models and simulation have major drawbacks since there are very real gaps between theory and practice.
p.188 The success of any plan depends entirely on the actual and not on the assumed response of an opponent
and on environmental conditions.
p.188 Military combat simulation, or wargaming, is, however, much more advanced conceptually than
that of business simulation. The military has long accepted the 'Wild Card' theory - a term used to describe an unpredictable
event likely to have far reaching effects on the outcome of a conflict. Business, in general, does not appear to accept
that an unpredictable event can occur which can change the outcome of a conflict in the market-place.
p.190 Winning strategies do not emerge from formulae and models and simulation will not prove a
strategy's value. Entrepreneurial skills are needed to develop winning strategies and combat experience is essential
to implement winning strategies. Simply, you cannot win if you do not have a sound strategy and equally,
strategies that cannot be implemented are useless.
