Operating Principle
2–4 min read
A competitor’s obvious gap, no offering in a certain segment, slower service in one area, invites an obvious response, move into the gap they left open. That response assumes the gap is an oversight.
Often it isn’t. A firm that intentionally chose not to serve a segment, or accepted slower service in one area to be faster in another, made that gap a deliberate trade-off connected to the rest of their strategic position. Moving into that gap without adopting the surrounding trade-offs that made it deliberate, in the first place, can mean building a strategy that fights the symptom, the visible gap, without accounting for the reason it existed, which may make the gap harder to actually exploit than it first appeared.
Operating Question
Why It Matters
Firms that rush into a competitor’s apparent weakness without asking whether it was deliberate risk discovering, expensively, that the gap existed for a reason connected to trade-offs they haven’t accounted for. Asking specifically why a competitor might have chosen that gap, rather than assuming it’s simply an oversight, clarifies whether it’s a genuine opportunity or a trap connected to dynamics not yet visible.
Supporting Evidence
Michael Porter, strategic trade-offs and fit (“What Is Strategy?”)
Research Notes
Some competitor gaps genuinely are oversights or resource constraints, not deliberate trade-offs; the discipline is investigating before assuming either explanation.
Distinguishing a deliberate trade-off from an actual oversight often requires direct market research, not just inference from the outside.
Practical Actions
Ask specifically whether a competitor’s apparent gap looks like a deliberate trade-off or a genuine oversight.
Consider what other trade-offs a competitor made that might explain the gap you’re seeing.
Test a smaller move into a competitor’s gap before committing fully, in case the gap resists exploitation for reasons not yet visible.
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