Game Changer

CHAPTER 4Six Market Forces

Companies occupy different positions within the fields of the seven pricing games in the Strategy Hex. But none of these positions is permanent, nor are they necessarily stable, because of the influence of the six forces shown in Figure 4.1.

The presence of these forces creates imbalances in markets and compels business leaders to decide whether they want to accelerate the underlying trends, resist them, or let them play out. These are often strategic decisions, because they can require significant investments in technology, geographic expansion, product development, marketing, and production assets. They also reinforce the tight link between corporate strategy and pricing strategy.

Regardless of whether they are initiated by a competitor, another external agent, or the company itself, these forces will invariably drive a leadership team's decisions on whether to continue to play a particular game or how to play the current game better.

Think of these forces as vectors acting on the position of a company within its game. If intense enough, these forces can alter the underlying characteristics of a market to such an extent that the market becomes a better fit to another game. They can change the number of buyers and sellers, influence customer needs, and reduce or increase the complexity and differentiation of offerings.

The six market forces manifest ...