Impressions from H2H, Head on Competition and its Demerits to the Evaluator, Dew Drops, Ravichander Rao
A H2H or the head-to-head is a jargon that we use to indicate that there is a direct competition with the competitor(s). Often this is a hectic activity which is preceded by a lot of prognosis and followed up by post-mortem. Simply because, the future sales depend on this one activity. Most of the times H2H goes on for months, before the customer who is evaluating the product officially declares the findings. So it is not hard imagine the nature of work during such times.
Aside of these, what my impression is about the H2H? To me this appears to be a necessary evil but not everything. Necessary because this shows direct comparison and differentiation with respect to your competitor, and not everything because the purchase decisions are never made just made on the final results. This is akin to saying Ferrari is the best car but we do not see thousands of Ferraris on the road on a daily basis - the general preference car in the US is a Corolla or a Civic or a Ford Focus, and in India this is a Maruti or Santro! This is more so true because every year the bar is raised to such a level that making the next step jump is getting very difficult and sustaining this jump year after year and months after months is getting even more difficult.
To illustrate this more, let us consider two arms manufacturing companies fighting for a market share - a common man. To the common man the company sells the idea that theirs is the best product with the best accuracy and light weight and any other unique or usual selling points. Now the common man being smart puts up a target with a bulls-eye and asks for a demonstration at the same time by the competitors. The two, more or less perform the same in their ability to hit the target, and the results are declared. The next year again, the two competitors meet with the their next version of the product. Since the customer already knows how good the accuracy and precision of the earlier version as he expects the this to be even better... So the next time he draws a smaller bulls-eye and makes the target even harder to achieve. With each year the target getting smaller and smaller to point that it is becoming a infinitesimal small dot, does it make any sense to showcase the product based on its accuracy alone? To a common man, a gun or a air-pistol could be a piece of decoration in his living room, a collector's passion, a theft deterrent protection system, and many more such reasons. Why should one fall trap to the accuracy and precision agenda? I chose arms manufacturing companies because they are far a distance from what I do, but are a close visualization to the realities of a H2H.
Let us consider another example, of an automotive industry in India and the US. Perhaps no other industry is under more pressure than this to sustain itself. Year after year if one needs to drive the sales of millions of car, how long can this be sustained, specially when the roads are not expanding at the same pace? Having more cars is creating more traffic congestion and giving less pleasure to ride. In the US terms, Ford, Toyota, Honda and GM are in a perpetual competition to gain the market share, and these days the hybrid model has become their USP. But Toyota and Honda have already these models, and Ford and GM have already / might come up with these soon, so again they are in the never ending H2H! In the Indian context, the USP is to sell low priced small car. Maruti first came up with a small car and later Fiat, Hyundai and Tata everyone launched theirs, and fighting for a market share. The fuel costs are also a driver here too... With Tata coming up with a Rs. 1 lakh car version, others might be a bitter spot in the future. But it is not going to be long for others to come up with their low cost versions... So the car manufacturing companies will again fight on the basis of fuel and selling price. A common man doesn't need a car if there are better transport systems. Probably he might even own one but minimize its use if there are better transport systems. His reason for a car many other than the low cost or fuel efficiency. At least in case of Tata the driver for the low cost car are status symbol that a car can bring in. So if any car manufacturing company decides to
remodel its car into a smaller versions of buses, and run many such buses providing efficient means of transportation, then they do not have to worry about H2H. Being an internal consumer of its own product, their profitability increases by better forecasting. What if they also decide to remodel themselves to provide pickup and drop-off facilities to office goers and the school goers? Now the pie is no longer selling a car but it is much bigger as they can provide solutions...
So probably there is a point where having a H2H is no longer sustainable or real differentiator, and that is perhaps the point when we should expect to see the industry remodel itself into a totally different way.
A H2H or the head-to-head is a jargon that we use to indicate that there is a direct competition with the competitor(s). Often this is a hectic activity which is preceded by a lot of prognosis and followed up by post-mortem. Simply because, the future sales depend on this one activity. Most of the times H2H goes on for months, before the customer who is evaluating the product officially declares the findings. So it is not hard imagine the nature of work during such times.
Aside of these, what my impression is about the H2H? To me this appears to be a necessary evil but not everything. Necessary because this shows direct comparison and differentiation with respect to your competitor, and not everything because the purchase decisions are never made just made on the final results. This is akin to saying Ferrari is the best car but we do not see thousands of Ferraris on the road on a daily basis - the general preference car in the US is a Corolla or a Civic or a Ford Focus, and in India this is a Maruti or Santro! This is more so true because every year the bar is raised to such a level that making the next step jump is getting very difficult and sustaining this jump year after year and months after months is getting even more difficult.
To illustrate this more, let us consider two arms manufacturing companies fighting for a market share - a common man. To the common man the company sells the idea that theirs is the best product with the best accuracy and light weight and any other unique or usual selling points. Now the common man being smart puts up a target with a bulls-eye and asks for a demonstration at the same time by the competitors. The two, more or less perform the same in their ability to hit the target, and the results are declared. The next year again, the two competitors meet with the their next version of the product. Since the customer already knows how good the accuracy and precision of the earlier version as he expects the this to be even better... So the next time he draws a smaller bulls-eye and makes the target even harder to achieve. With each year the target getting smaller and smaller to point that it is becoming a infinitesimal small dot, does it make any sense to showcase the product based on its accuracy alone? To a common man, a gun or a air-pistol could be a piece of decoration in his living room, a collector's passion, a theft deterrent protection system, and many more such reasons. Why should one fall trap to the accuracy and precision agenda? I chose arms manufacturing companies because they are far a distance from what I do, but are a close visualization to the realities of a H2H.
Let us consider another example, of an automotive industry in India and the US. Perhaps no other industry is under more pressure than this to sustain itself. Year after year if one needs to drive the sales of millions of car, how long can this be sustained, specially when the roads are not expanding at the same pace? Having more cars is creating more traffic congestion and giving less pleasure to ride. In the US terms, Ford, Toyota, Honda and GM are in a perpetual competition to gain the market share, and these days the hybrid model has become their USP. But Toyota and Honda have already these models, and Ford and GM have already / might come up with these soon, so again they are in the never ending H2H! In the Indian context, the USP is to sell low priced small car. Maruti first came up with a small car and later Fiat, Hyundai and Tata everyone launched theirs, and fighting for a market share. The fuel costs are also a driver here too... With Tata coming up with a Rs. 1 lakh car version, others might be a bitter spot in the future. But it is not going to be long for others to come up with their low cost versions... So the car manufacturing companies will again fight on the basis of fuel and selling price. A common man doesn't need a car if there are better transport systems. Probably he might even own one but minimize its use if there are better transport systems. His reason for a car many other than the low cost or fuel efficiency. At least in case of Tata the driver for the low cost car are status symbol that a car can bring in. So if any car manufacturing company decides to
remodel its car into a smaller versions of buses, and run many such buses providing efficient means of transportation, then they do not have to worry about H2H. Being an internal consumer of its own product, their profitability increases by better forecasting. What if they also decide to remodel themselves to provide pickup and drop-off facilities to office goers and the school goers? Now the pie is no longer selling a car but it is much bigger as they can provide solutions...
So probably there is a point where having a H2H is no longer sustainable or real differentiator, and that is perhaps the point when we should expect to see the industry remodel itself into a totally different way.
