Comments on: Was being a fast follower ever a viable strategic option?

By: Jim McGee

Jim McGee — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 14:33:36 +0000

Espen, I thought about that. It certainly makes sense at one level. On the other hand, I’m coming from the perspective that most “fast follower” claims are more rhetorical than real. It suggests that a follow up post about what would a real fast follower strategy look like might be in order.

If you really wanted to incorporate learning from competitors into your strategic decision making and tackle changing the slope/shape of your learning curve, that ought to lead to some fairly distinct efforts. It’s probably what benchmarking was intended to be, for example.

By: Espen

Espen — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 14:08:53 +0000

Jim, shouldn’t the slope of the learning curves be different? That is, the fast follower banks on a steeper learning curve by learning not only by own experiments but from the errors of the first mover?

By: Jim McGee

Jim McGee — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 14:51:07 +0000

Excellent points. No doubt that Microsoft has excelled at fast following and represents a case that I had not considered of vastly different resources between first mover and fast follower. Cisco would be another example.

You might also argue that both Microsoft and Cisco are not exactly pursuing a fast follower strategy so much as a strategy of sourcing innovation externally and applying their resources to scaling those innovations that appear to have a market foothold.

By: Dean Thrasher

Dean Thrasher — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 14:38:26 +0000

I consider Microsoft a canonical example of a fast follower. Microsoft monitors trends in computing and consumer electronics, spots innovations, and then attempts to re-implement and distribute them using its core products as a base.

The strategy doesn’t always work. The Zune hasn’t overtaken the iPod, for example. But Microsoft Internet Explorer dethroned Netscape and the Xbox has displaced the Playstation. There used to be many different business application suites, before Microsoft bundled all the killer features into Microsoft Office.

And your analysis leaves out the best way to make a fast follower strategy work, if you have the cash: buy the leader.