Competition

Competition needn't be scary

Competition is a good thing.

It generally encourages brands to try harder to secure new customers, and to double their efforts to keep their existing ones. The old adage, ‘familarity breeds contempt’ needn’t always be true!

But,  if the competition aren’t snapping at your profit margins / market share, it’s easier to become just a little complacent and let prices creep up, take your eye off quality control, and not worry quite so much about innovating…

With the recession biting, we’re seeing some rather worrying conglomerates emerging. Lloyds TSB scooped up the HBOS group* (Halifax / Bank of Scotland), which required the government to conveniently ignore competition laws they’d introduced just a few years back in order to ensure against such events.

Now, we see the Icelandic company Baugur is on the brink of collapse. The cash rich Phillip Green (who already has a hand in much of the Great British High Street), is primed and ready to scoop up vast swathes of the high street at a knock-down price. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not against big business. Far from it.

Just so long as consumers don’t end up getting a raw deal at the other end…

Iain Morrison is a senior marketer in the British Tourism Industry. *And a shareholder in our banks. Just like the rest of the British taxpayers…