corresponding opportunities in nearly every market, from taxi services to advanced manufacturing to startup funding.
With this introduction to maneuver warfare concepts and terms, let us address two applications specific to the SUAS market.
SIGNS THAT YOU ARE BEING OUT-MANEUVERED
If you wonder whether you might be at risk of losing existing customers from the sUAS market, or at a fundamental disadvantage to claim new winning ground, consider if any of these statements apply to you:
• Your competition appears to already have a presence (or established business) in a business space or market (or with a target customer) that you also want to pursue
• Your internal efforts are consistently changing focus or direction more often than your engagement with target customers. This means you have disconnected yourself (and your OODA Loop) from the ultimate objective and source of value (your customer)
• You get a Request For Proposal (RFP) from a client (or talk with them directly) and you recognize capabilities or talking points from a competitor. It means that competitor has already shaped the vision and desire of this customer for their preferred solution. In other words, they have already shaped the business “battlefield” to their competitive advantage.
SOME SPECIFIC WAYS TO APPLY MANEUVER WARFARE THEORY IN YOUR SUAS BUSINESS
• As entrepreneur and Lean Startup creator Steve Blank says bluntly, “There are no facts inside the building so get the hell outside.” Dedicate time and effort to direct observation and interaction with your ideal customers. Your benefits will be more accurate orientation and deeper understanding (fingerspitzengefühl) of their needs, challenges, constraints, and goals.
• Use modern online tools to increase your powers of observation and orientation. If you aren’t already subscribed to podcasts, YouTube channels, blogs, newsletters, and websites related to the sUAS market, change that. Equally important, subscribe to media in the vertical markets you are targeting for your business, whether that is real estate, construction, agriculture, or the movie industry. Seek out, connect with, and/or follow people in the relevant centers of gravity (Schwerpunkt) via social media such as LinkedIn, Google+, and Twitter.
• For more targeted observation (and with stealth), use Google Alerts. This is a powerful resource that automates a Google search across the entire worldwide web for whatever criteria you select. You can specify an alert for all items about sUAS in New York City, for instance. You can target specific companies. Yes, you can also set search criteria targets for individuals, including yourself.
• Within your organization, conduct an honest assessment of your team’s vision, mission clarity, and trust. If any one your team members happened to engage with a target customer (whether in person or online), would they have the motivation, ability, and support to take the most effective action? How would they OODA?
• Just like any technology (including sUAS), maneuver warfare theory can be used for good or evil purposes. Nowhere do we want to encourage or imply that it should be used for illegal or immoral purposes. But if you want to create some honest confusion and chaos among your competitors, our digital age presents many opportunities. Email autoresponders enable you to appear to be sending email messages whenever you choose. Social media integration tools allow you to automatically respond or distribute messages across multiple platforms. Virtual assistants in foreign countries can be employed for very modest costs, and they can operate when you (and your competitors) are sleeping. Literally.