Co-opetition Strategy

This competitive strategy recognizes the value of viewing the marketplace not as a “zero sum game” in which your gain is always someone else’s loss but rather as a place in which value can be created by discovering mutually beneficial relationships with other organizations that would traditionally have been considered competitors.

This approach recognizes that organizations become stronger the more value-generating relationships that they forge. We believed in and extensively practiced this approach during my tenure at e-Learning provider Element K.

•    We provided our content/courses to Learning Management System vendors.
•    We offered our Learning Management System to organizations that want to host other companies’ content.
•    We actually private labeled our entire e-Learning solution to organizations that wanted to compete with Element K in the e-Learning space.
•    We provided referrals to online degree granting schools in return to their referrals to us for continuing education.

And the list could go on and on. Suffice it to say that most of our competitors were also our business partners in one-way or another. This approach offers numerous advantages for the company that pursues it:
•    Value-added exchange of information (latest product/service features, competitive information, industry trends, etc.)
•    A cooperative relationship with your competitors
•    More business referrals
•    The ability to provide products and services and gain business that would have been difficult to accomplish alone
•    More exposure to more deal flows
•    A greater exposure of your brand in the marketplace (leading to greater brand awareness)
•    The ability to focus on building your organization’s unique core competencies

For more information on the concept of co-optition consult the following sources:
Co-opetition : 1. A Revolutionary Mindset That Redefines Competition and Cooperation; 2. The Game Theory Strategy That’s Changing the Game of Business by Adam M. Brandenburger, Barry J. Nalebuff, and Ada Brandenberger and The Death of Competition by James Moore

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