Two interesting thoughts

As quoted in The Special Events Advisor by David Sorin, from Competing for the Future by Gary Hemel and C. K. Prahalad:

"Typically the existing industry structure works to the disadvantage of everyone save the industry leader, and most especially to the disadvantage of aspiring aspirants. What is needed is a capacity to transform the structure of an industry... Industries don't 'evolve.' Instead firms eager to overturn present industry order challenge 'accepted practice,' redraw segment boundaries, set new price-performance expectations, and reinvent the product or service concept."

Another exerpt from Competing for the Future as quoted in The Special Events Advisor:

In our experience, strategic planning typically fails to provoke deeper debates about who we are as a company or who we want to be in ten years' time. It seldom illuminates new white space opportunities, provides any insight onto how to rewrite industry rules. It seldom stretches to encompass the threat from nontraditional competitors. It seldom forces managers to confront their potentially out-of-date conventions. Strategic planning almost always starts with "what is." It seldom starts with "what could be."... Strategic planning works well when the foundations of planning - assumptions about what is our "industry," what "business" are we in, who are our competitors, who are customers, and what are their needs - remain unshaken. But in many industries these foundations are being shaken. They are being shaken by new competitors who have no stake in the past. They are being shaken by seismic shifts in technology, demographics and the regulartory environment. Strategic planning is well-suited to the challenge of extending leadership - adding a story or two atop the old foundation. It is not well-suited to the challenge of regenerating leadership - building new foundations.... To extend industry foresight and develop a supporting strategic architecture, companies need a new perspective on what it means to be strategic. The need to ask new strategy questions: not just how to maximize share and profit in today's businesses, but who do we want to be as a corporation in ten years' time, how can we reshape this industry to our advantage, what new functionalities do we want to creat for customers and what new core competencies should we be building?... They need to apply new and diferent resources to the task of strategy-making, relying on the creativity of hundreds of managers and not just on the wisdom of a few planners.

I know that second one is long. but it's meaningful. the basic idea that i'm drawing is that big established business is good at the status quo and expanding the status quo. they've invested heavily in equipment and brain cells and think only of protecting that investment. the only way for new entrants to gain the upper hand it to change the game and the industry.

Does this give new entrants any clue what to do?.. not exactly, but it explains what not to do.