I’m now reading David and Goliath by Malcolm Gladwell. He is one of my favourite authors with his counter-intuitiveness. “We have,” writes Gladwell, in summing up the moral to the famous Biblical story, “a very rigid and limited definition of what an advantage is. We think of things as helpful that actually aren’t and think of other things as unhelpful that in reality leave us stronger and wiser.”
Many of us have used the metaphor of the large ocean liner (big corporation) that takes a long time to turn compared to the small speed boat (SME), to highlight the advantages of being small and nimble. But deep down we believe big corp will win, because big corp always wins.
But what if, like David, you are an “expert slinger”. Japs is the small player who serves bigger chicken pieces (so I’m told) than the Colonel and this is causing some migration. S M Jaleel has taken on the might of Coca Cola in T&T and having conquered the islands has since moved on to the world. In T&T they did it initially, among other things, with a unique distribution system using small “Pickup Trucks” and owning the “parlour shop” end of the trade. Monster chased the Goliath Red Bull off the rostrum in T&T by sampling like hell, offering a better price/value relationship and more variety.
Big Corp therefore needs to create their own Davids before some come along that are not on their side. And David just needs to keep sharpening his slinging skills.
(Thanks for the book Gina.)
