Surviving in the business battlefield

Book review of The Art of Business Wars

David Brown, host of a popular podcast called Business Wars, has put together a delightful book of stories about some exceptional entrepreneurs. Despite its title and the structuring of the chapters around the teachings of Sun Tzu’s  The Art of War,  this volume is less about actual business wars and more about breakthrough ideas and innovations in various business sectors. It is written in a peppy style and is an easy read. And it is a great book for anyone interested in business history.

The author covers a wide field and is an excellent storyteller, keeping his tales short and snappy. He starts off with Henry Ford and his drive to make cars cheaper and quicker and the development of the legendary Model T as well as the creation of the assembly line, which helped push him past almost all his competitors. He paints a picture of a restless inventor and tinkerer who kept improving things and building better and better cars until he made automobiles affordable for the American masses. This tale also sets the tone for the other stories that follow in the book.

Most of the accounts in the book are from US business history and feature American entrepreneurs. But Mr Brown also occasionally moves to other countries to introduce a bit of diversity into what would have otherwise been limited to profiles of multiple American business personalities.

In particular, he devotes plenty of space to a number of women who have not received enough credit in the history of business for their exceptional innovations and their role in revolutionising multiple industries. These include Ruth Handler of Mattel, who was responsible for the Barbie and Ken phenomenon despite stiff resistance from male executives, the big toy retailers and lack of support from her husband.

 Other remarkable women featured in the book include Olive Ann Mellor Beech who actually built up her husband’s company, Beech Aircraft, despite facing coup attempts from both senior executives and family members. Then there is Lillian Vernon who created the famous Lillian Vernon Catalog that made her a household name. Mr Brown also tells the story of Whitney Wolfe, co-founder of Tinder, who was pushed out of the company and her role whitewashed by her partners, and who went on to create Bumble. Biocon’s Kiran Majumdar-Shaw features, too — representing both women with breakthrough ideas as well as an example from India.

The Art of Business Wars

Author:  David Brown

Publisher: Hachette India

Pages: 316; Price: Rs 699

Some of the stories feature actual business wars — including IBM vs Remington Rand when the first computers were making their appearance in the business landscape. IBM’s Thomas Watson Sr who had built a powerhouse business of tabulating machines using punch cards was pretty dismissive about computers. He even prevented his son Thomas Watson Jr from getting into computers initially. Rand hit the market first with the UNIVAC but lost out because it didn’t understand customers. IBM was not the first to the market but quickly made up with its clearer understanding of the market dynamics and client requirements.

The tale of the famous beer wars between Anheuser Busch and the Miller Brewing Company also falls into this category as does the Netscape Navigator vs Microsoft war on the browser front. There is also an interesting story about the rivalry between two New York architects for building the tallest building in the city.

Most of the stories, though, are just about breakthroughs, business ideas, leadership and innovation and, of course, profiles of remarkable men and women. The war motif comes in because of Sun Tzu’s exhortations in every chapter and the author’s basic premise that business is about survival in the market just like an army’s survival in the battlefield. Even if you ignore the bits about war, the book can be read simply as a wonderful volume of contemporary business history.

Some of the stories are obviously well known (Ford, Apple vs Blackberry, the Beer wars or the story about SouthWest Airlines). Others have not been featured in too many books of business history. If there is a weakness, it is that the tales often stop at specific points and do not follow through with what happened to the company later on. IBM and Microsoft’s later missteps do not feature in the book, for example, nor the second part of the Ford story when it ceded ground to General Motors.

The book is a very easy read and meant to appeal to the lay reader as well as the business historian. Mr Brown manages to keep things simple and paints vivid pictures of the personalities involved. It is not meant for deep business research but contains plenty of insights. It is an enjoyable book even for those who do not follow business very closely.