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Enticing your competitors toward business that drives up their costs is one of the most complex strategies of hardball competition. For example, you can set prices so your competitors respond by seeking business that they think will be profitable for them, but that will, in fact, drive up their costs and depress their profits.
This is a risky, bet-the-company strategy. It works best in complex businesses where costs may be misallocated.

Deceive the competition.
This strategy revolves around making the competitor to set up or move in a way that puts him off balance and reduces his ability to meet attack. The high technology industry has employed fakes for years - for example - to attract customers and to distract competitors a software company may announce a software which isn't ready for prime time. However, this has to be used with caution as this tactic deceives not only the competition but also the investors.

These strategies in Hardball are classics, but "classic" does not mean "static". The game of hardball is dynamic and always evolving. New barriers to achieving competitive advantage emerge, several issues will affect the way hardball must be played in the future and will change the rules for players who wish to be winners, especially on the global field.

To ensure that while playing hard the companies do not ignore business ethics, it is important that every move must be evaluated in the light of the following questions: -

• Will the proposed action break any laws?

• Will the proposed action be bad for the customer?

• Will competitors be directly hurt by an action?

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* Contributed by: -
Bhawna Sikka & Vaibhav Hari,
PGDBM 2006,
IMT, Ghaziabad.