November 22, 2005
Competition Makes Associations Better, Too
Posted by Kevin | Print This Article
Last week an editor at a trade publication in our industry (who’s a good friend of mine) wrote a column wondering why our industry doesn’t speak with “one voice” — in other words, “Why are there so many associations?” he plaintively asked.
This sort of question comes up all the time, not just in my industry but in lots of industries and professions. The same business owners who praise the benefits of competition in their own sector wonder why their various associations can’t just merge into one.
And then, on the other hand, they complain about organizations that are cumbersome and bureaucratic and slow to respond and “how come they don’t respond to the needs of my special interest group” etc.
Well … maybe if your association had more nimble competitors, they’d be nimbler themselves. In my organization, our competitors (not old-school associations but private for-profit groups) have made us better, stronger, faster, and much, much bigger.
But competition can also be quite wasteful as well, particularly when the size of the total market is relatively small, as is often the case in the association world. By this, I don’t mean the size of the market the associations serve, but the size of the market the associations themselves create.
I believe that the Kim and Mauborgne book on Blue Ocean Strategy makes a persuasive case that companies (and I would say associations as well) are better off trying to identify strategic moves that create entirely new markets in which they have no competition. Short of that, I favor a three Cs approach for associations who have other associations in their space: cooperate where appropriate, collaborate where possible and compete where necessary.
I’m also a bit more concerned these days about our use of the word “nimble.” What exactly do we mean by nimble? And we find it desirable to be nimble toward what end exactly? My interpretation of a “more nimble competitor” is an organization that is able to more quickly create new value for customers. But I’m not sure if that is your intended meaning, or if there is (or can be) a shared meaning of the term throughout the community. Still, I think it is very important to be clear about what words mean so we can have more constructive strategic conversations.