Marketing Insights Gained from Military Strategy

All of recorded history confirms that the relative strength of a nation’s military power largely determines the degree it can assert and enforce its imperialistic, economic and political aims. The waxing and waning of its relative military power tends to closely correspond with the rise and fall of nations.

Similarly, the relative power of a commercial organization’s marketing, sales and distribution capabilities largely determines the success or failure of a business worldwide.

Perhaps for these reasons, analogies of various military strategies have been used to illustrate marketing and selling mechanisms and means. Certain ideas of military strategy are important for all who are engaged in commercial competitive activities. These are the ideas of maneuver, and especially of flanking movements.

Maneuvering and Flanking a Vulnerability

In marketing terms, a flank is a point of vulnerability or opportunity with a major customer or in a large market, which is sometimes called a niche.

If a competitor successfully takes this opportunity it can become a launching point from which the competitor can further encroach on large markets and specific customers.

Winston Churchill describes this phenomenon in his series entitled “The World Crises.” In that series he states that maneuver is necessary before one group can flank another.

Maneuvering is typical of competition during the early and developing stages of a market. Almost every great company establishes themselves by maneuvering themselves into a position where it is considered the best choice for customers.

This maneuverability must also remain a main focus of organizations once they mature as they keep track of the major established segments in the total market. This obsession with maneuvering can leave new, vulnerable flanks in the market, which smaller organizations can attack with specialty products and offerings.

Examples of flanking movements can be seen in almost any industry as smaller firms recognize and take advantage of weaknesses to surpass well-established competitors.

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