The comparisons between war and business life are similar in five ways. 'These are the
way, the weather, the terrain, the leadership and dicipline.'
First of them is the way. In war the way you have to avoid from the strong andstrike at
weak. Therefore at the beginning when you want to grow your business you don't neet to
challange stronger rivals at first, you have to grow first by challanging the weak rivals in the
business.
The weather is the business conditions in modern terms. In dry weathers Tzu proposes to fight
by fire but not in rainy weather. this means if you are challanging a rival in business environment
you have to consider the global business cycle and the national conditions at first to acquire the
target. for examole Demirbank had an asset value of nearly 5billion$ before the crisis of 2001,
but it is rumored that HSBC acquired it for nearly 300million $ after the crisis, a bargain!
The terrain is the ground wherew the battle, or attack is taking place. Differrent terrains
bring different tactics. A large battlefield has different strategy than a narrow passage. In terms
of business the business environment the constitutional and legal framework, the socio-political
institutions in the country can be determinant for the strategy to be choosen. For example a large
frenchizing firm say IKEA may choose to open its own stores in Europe, where terrain is solid
and massive but in Turkey it may choose to frenchise to another national firm because of the
slippery terrain.
The leader in war is the commander and it stands for 'the virtues of wisdom, sincerely,
benevolence, courage and strictness'. Similarly the manager has to be a symbol for the
employees in the firm. His attitudes and moral values, his confidence and tactics should be
respected in the firm. Else the firm may lose efficiency and may become a sheep for the wolves.
In addition the manager should have good comminication with his sub-managers, if not the
workers can not be willing to challange the rivals.
Finally the dicipline for an army is important. It brings control, flexibility under different
conditions and fast and proper organization. Similarly business needs good organizations where
every single individual knows its job and responsibility, wnd also monitored by the supervisors
systematically. A small mistake may cause firms to lose their prestige, profit and in the end their
business. Similarly if a watchman falls asleep the army can be ruined. A few years ago a wrong
design of tires for Ford cars by Firestone caused thousands of cars with bursting tires and Ford
nearly lost its leading place to other firms because of that mistake.
