Business Strategy: Competition Demystified
A well-attended and informative event, organized by ACT and SBBE.
The critical issue of Competition was discussed by leading speakers from Greece and abroad during the event “Business Strategy: Competition Demystified”. The successful event which attracted more than 300 people was organized by the ACT School of Business and the Federation of Industries of Northern Greece (SBBE).
The event took place on Wednesday, March 21, 2018, at Porto Palace Hotel with the support of the Greek International Business Association (SEVE) and the Thessaloniki Chamber of Commerce and Industry (TCCI).
The audience was welcomed by Anatolia College President Panos Vlachos and the President of SBBE, Mr. Athanasios Savvakis.
Mr. Jan Hummel, founder, and CIO of Paradigm Capital, based in Germany, argued that each company should seek to specialize either geographically or on a product-driven basis and not rely on any "comparative advantage" as this is often lost. "It is not always true, that great companies are opportunities for investors because of the high price of their shares," said Mr. Hummel, while the rating of a company should be done with "filters" such as return on capital, its growth, its balance sheet, corporate governance, the relationship between the value of the company and its share price.
Mr. Vassilis Antoniadis, Senior Partner, and Managing Director, The Boston Consulting Group (BCG)in Athens, said that "Your strategy needs a strategy", emphasizing its importance in a time characterized by speed and unimaginable technological progress taking place in the United States and even more impressively in China. Mr Antoniadis argued that "there must be a distinct and different strategy for each product”, and emphasized the importance of keeping a balance between the daily operation of a business and the need to continually reinvent itself.
Mr. Christos Tsentemeidis, Customer Development Director of South East Europe, Johnson & Johnson Consumer, said that in order to succeed in the FMCG's industry you have to love competitiveness and speed. In recent years, the Greek consumer has changed his consumer habits due to the financial crisis.
Companies had to adapt to the new reality and adapt their strategy. Through examples, he showed that those companies that managed to correctly diagnose changes in consumer wishes, found the competitive advantage of the business and implemented their strategy quickly, managed to gain market share. Most of them were smaller companies that were more flexible than the larger ones.
The event was moderated by Jack Florentin, President, and CEO of Sarah Lawrence SA, who focused on the losses that companies which don’t adequately deal with their competitors might face.
