Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Des Dearlove is co founder of the media content, concepts and consulting firm Suntop Media.  He writes on business issues for magazines and newspapers throughout the world, including The Times, American Management Review and is a contributing editor to the US magazine Strategy+Business. Suntop Media’s Thought Leader Interview series is syndicated to publications in more than 25 countries.
Des is an author or co-author of numerous books. They include Generation Entrepreneur (shortlisted for the WH Smith Book Prize), Gravy Training, and Firestarters!   Des is an editor of the bestselling Financial Times Handbook of Management, now in its the third edition.

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The Unauthorized Guide to Doing Business the Richard Branson Way

John Wiley & Sons

Chapter One

'At Virgin, we have a strategy of using the credibility of our brand to challenge the dominant players in a range of industries where we believe the consumer is not getting value for money.' -Richard Branson

Richard Branson has made a career out of playing David to the other guy's Goliath. In the past two decades, Virgin has crossed swords with some of the most powerful companies on the planet. In the 1970s, the Virgin record label went up against the music establishment, including the likes of EMI. When he set up Virgin Atlantic Airways in the 1980s, Branson took on the big airlines, going head to head with British Airways. In the 1990s, Virgin entered the soft drinks market with of all things a cola - placing it in direct competition with the giants of Coca-Cola and Pepsi Co. In financial services, Virgin Money competes with the banks and other large-scale financial institutions.

Where some entrepreneurs might take one look at the market dominance of the big players and think better of it, Branson actually delights in taking on, and outmaneuvering large corporations. When Branson launched Virgin cola, one journalist noted: 'I got the impression it was not the money but the prospect of taking on the mighty Coca-Cola corporation that really gave him his kicks.'

'Virgin stands for a sense of challenge', says Branson. 'We like to use the brand to take on some very large companies, whom we believe exert too much power. There are cases where a brand name has traditionally been almost synonymous with the product it is selling - Coca-Cola, Kellogg's, Hoover for example - with heavy advertising to keep it that way. In fact, many American brand names like these grew up during the so-called era of the robber barons which led to the introduction of America's excellent anti-trust laws in the early 20th Century.'

RICHARD THE LIONHEART

Branson has a remarkable ability to clothe almost everything he does in a crusading cloak. This lends the Virgin brand moral authority. When pitted against the immensely powerful forces of 'big business', Branson-style capitalism looks almost saintly by comparison. By targeting companies with dominant and often aggressive market positions, Virgin is able to seize the moral high ground from the outset, something that gives it a distinctive edge with consumers.

Where other empire builders get involved in commercial dogfights, Branson goes in for crusades - with Virgin invariably on the side of the angels. The strategy relies on the credibility of the brand, and public confidence in the Virgin chairman himself, to 'do the right thing'. (Incredibly for a businessman, Branson was one of a handful of people chosen in a poll of Britain's youth as someone they would trust to 're-write the Ten Commandments'.)

In many of the markets Virgin has entered consumers sensed that they were not being treated fairly, but couldn't see any other choice than the big players. They simply accepted that their best interests were not being served. Virgin offers an alternative. As one Virgin executive observes: 'If you go for big, fat, lazy brand leaders, it's often easy to offer better value for money.'

In addition, it allows you to be on the side of the consumer, who will thank you for it.

Branson's greatest gift as an entrepreneur and a businessman is his preoccupation with the consumers' point of view. When he went into the music business in the 1970s, for example, the long-haired - and later spiky haired - youngsters he was selling to hated the 'straight' music establishment, which they believed ripped off fans and artists. They saw Branson as a crusader for their alternative culture.

When he launched Virgin Direct, the financial services company, Branson expressly said that he was going to shake up the market. It was a 'dirty business' he said, that needed cleaning up.

'The Virgin name is trusted, especially by younger people', he said. 'The consumer has been taken for a ride for too long by an industry which has been able to hide its charges.'

HOIST A PIRATE FLAG

Others see Branson more as a buccaneer than a crusader. The appeal of the swashbuckling Virgin boss, they argue, is his complete lack of respect for figures of authority. This, combined with a gleeful sense of fun, and the pleasure of being an irritant to big business, is what attracts them to his side.

On this reading, he steers a course for the most heavily armed treasure ships, laden with the spoils of excessive market power. Time and time again, he has hoisted the Virgin logo over a new venture like a modern day skull and crossbones, as he and his youthful pirate crew board the market of one multinational or another.

Branson is well aware of this imagery and has used the pirate motif to good effect, to generate publicity and to antagonize the competition, something that he excels at. Shortly after the launch of Virgin Atlantic Airways, for example, Branson issued an invitation to photographers from the British national press to record his swashbuckling antics. The location: Heathrow, London's main airport - where British Airways kept a full-size model of Concorde decked out in its corporate livery.

At the appointed time, Branson appeared dressed as a buccaneer, complete with eye patch, and lowered the Virgin livery onto Concorde, stealing the UK national carrier's thunder and providing a fantastic photo opportunity. The newspapers the next day carried photographs of Branson and his Virgin pirates boarding the BA flagship. Lord King, BA chairman at the time, was said to be so incensed when he saw the pictures that he almost broke the sound barrier himself.

EVERY UNDERDOG MUST HAVE HIS DAY

Branson is very good at positioning Virgin as the underdog (even though when viewed as a group, Virgin is actually a big company in its own right). It's hard to think badly of a man who picks on companies that are, or at least appear to be, much bigger than his.

Sports fans know that the outsider will often attract the neutral observer to its side. The same seems to work in business. Positioning Virgin as the small guy has important psychological advantages. It plays well with customers, especially those who feel neglected or that they have been taken for a ride in the past. They are likely to be drawn to the plucky, tenacious style of the little guy who is prepared to stand up to the bullies. Faced with the prospect of some cheeky upstart taking on the might of a multinational, neutral onlookers can't help but applaud Virgin's audacity.

It's also good for the motivation of Virgin employees to feel they are taking part in an epic struggle: Virgin's entrepreneurial flair and enthusiasm pitted against lumbering corporate beefcake. As the underdog, they have everything to gain and nothing to lose. At the same time, the arrival of a loud-mouthed 'hippy' like Branson on their territory is almost guaranteed to incense the competition - forcing them to make mistakes.

It's clear, too, that there's something in Branson's psyche that responds to the challenge. He delights in having the odds stacked against him, and takes enormous pleasure in doing what the experts say can't be done. Where that challenge involves administering shock treatment to a complacent market leader, it is all the more...