Management is the activity of transforming uncertainty into certainty to create predictability. For example, investing in stocks when you don’t know when or how much you’ll make is a gamble, but finding a way to achieve an average return of 15% per month is management. Bank loans have a fixed schedule for when and how much principal and interest must be repaid. It is not the banking business where you can repay or request repayment at any time when you have funds. Nevertheless, we gamble or engage in a ritual for rain, mistakenly believing that it is management. - Joseph’s “just my thoughts”
Every business has competitors, and succeeding in business means achieving victory over the competition. Winning the competition implies creating a monopoly. One of the most traditional methods of monopolizing the market is offering rebates to buyers, often referred to as a ‘bribe,’ which is illegal. The reason monopolies are so harmful is that they infringe on customers’ choices and benefits, as opposed to merely allowing one company to dominate the market. Facebook acquired Instagram and the messaging app WhatsApp to eliminate its competitors. Although Facebook is primarily a social media platform, why would it consider WhatsApp a competitor? Because WhatsApp provides group chat services to clients, and if it expands, it could easily transition into a social media platform. - Joseph’s “just my thoughts”