Of Murderous Cheetahs and Spotted Elephants !!

Einstein himself once remarked that anything is possible as long as one can imagine it. Intellectual abilities as they say, knows no boundaries specially when wedded to wild imagination...but then some of the finest and the populist ideas are born this way...

In one of the strategy case discussions (actually Operations Management) in our class at IIMA,the professor was referring as 'cheetahs' to companies which are nimble and agile by design with customised and non-standardised product range,while 'Elephants' were their opposite counterparts,with standardised product range,high volumes and competitive pricing strategy. In the market place where both cheetahs and Elephants co-exist and compete..there may be two likely scenarios:

1.Cheetahs sometimes changed their strategy to compete with Elephants in the market,in order to compete with them...

2..and sometimes Elephants invited cheetahs to meet them in their own turf...

The Professor said the first one is known as CBGH (Cheetah ban gaya haathi/Cheetah becomes an Elephant) and the second one is known as...ACMK(Aa cheetah mujhe kha/come cheetah eat me)

...Left me wondering that if market is akin to a Jungle(... and not a Zoo),then why only Cheetahs and Elephants; why not also...

• Monkeys(small niche players),
• Bulls(Attack when provoked,show strength through size ,otherwise),
• Hyenas(Devour the leftovers of the market leader)...and many more such entities...

Are we not limited by the strength of our imagination!!