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【正文】 ct on their costs is limited. Second, an Interbased reservation system is inexpensive to develop and maintain when all the aircraft in a fleet are identical, there is only one cabin class, tickets are not refundable, and passengers can’t reserve seats. However, the traditional airlines’ systems must provide for multiple cabin classes, handle several kinds of tickets, provide several levels of refunds, and reserve seats, making them expensive investments. Third, most incumbents participate in industrywide reservation systems such as Sabre, which robs them of control over some seats. Finally, the traditional airlines have set up works of travel agents, which would rebel if the carriers made a plete shift to direct bookings. For all those reasons, traditional carriers are unable to reduce their booking costs to the levels the discount airlines have achieved. Slashing prices usually lowers profits for all incumbents without driving the lowcost entrant out of business. I learned that firsthand while serving as a consultant to a European teleequipment provider that was peting against traditional rivals as well as a lowcost Asian petitor for a multimilliondollar contract in Africa. All the bidders kept cutting prices in order to best the Asian rival’s offer, which proved to be the lowest after every round of bidding. Eventually, the tele giants discovered that the Asian pany had offered a 40% discount on the lowest price the customer could negotiate with its rivals! Not surprisingly, the lowcost pany won the contract. In addition, although the tele giants would not have made profits on their lowest bids, the Asian contender seemed likely to do so. When Differentiation Works When businesses finally realize they can’t win a price war with lowcost players, they try to differentiate their products in a lastditch attempt at coexistence. This strategy, the consultant’s favorite antidote, takes many forms. Companies, we’re told, should adopt the following approaches: Design cool products, as, say, Apple and Bang amp。 Olufsen do. Continually innovate in the tradition of Gillette and 3M. Offer a unique product mix, like that of Sharper Image and Whole Foods. Brand a munity 224。 la HarleyDavidson and Red Bull. Sell experiences, as Four Seasons, Nordstrom, and Starbucks do. Since the tactics I’ve mentioned are wellknown, I will not discuss them in detail. My research shows, however, that three conditions determine their efficacy. First, smart businesses don’t use these tactics in isolation. For instance, Bang amp。 Olufsen is able to pete effectively against lowcost electronics manufacturers with its design capabilities. That approach works well because the Danish pany also keeps introducing new products, cultivates an upscale brand image, and invests time and money in creating coollooking retail outlets. Second, panies must be able to persuade consumers to pay for benefits. The ability to do so usually depends on the products they sell. For instance, Gillette, finding that it can push the ―closer shave‖ envelope for men, has launched the Atra, Atra Plus, Sensor, Sensor Excel, Mach 3, Mach 3 Turbo, and Centro shaving systems at ever higher prices over the past 20 years. However, when the pany deployed a similar strategy for Duracell batteries by emphasizing longer life, many consumers balked at paying higher prices after a certain point. That’s because they found it almost impossible to notice the better performance and longer life of Duracell Ultra batteries. Energizer and Rayovac fought back by offering more batteries for the same price, which negated Duracell Ultra’s longlife advantage. Eventually, Gillette had to back away from this differentiation gambit. Many panies find it tough to persuade consumers to pay for additional benefits. A small premium for greater services or benefits is a powerful defense, as Target and Walgreens have shown. Target stocks inexpensive kitchenware and clothes developed by wellknown designers such as Michael Graves and Isaac Mizrahi. It charges a bit more for products of better quality and design than those WalMart sells. In like vein, Walgreens emphasizes convenience by setting up its stores close to shopping centers and providing drivethrough windows for pickups, promising short checkout lines, and offering easy navigation because of smart store layouts. Both Target and Walgreens have therefore managed to hold their own against WalMart. All too often, though, incumbents incur huge costs in order to deliver benefits, forcing them to ask for price premiums so large that they drive away consumers. The third condition necessary for a successful differentiation strategy is simple: Companies must bring costs and benefits in line before implementing it. That takes time. After years of restructuring, HewlettPackard may finally be catching up with Dell in the personal puter business. HP has shrunk Dell’s cost advantage from 20% to 10%, and since average PC prices have fallen, the absolute difference in prices is relatively small. Consumers are shopping for HP puters once again because of such benefits as instant delivery and the ability to see, feel, and touch products in stores. Unless sizable numbers of consumers demand additional benefits, however, panies may have to yield some markets to the price warriors. Take the case of British Airways, which initially ignored lowcost rivals such as easyJet and Ryanair。 then set up a lowcost carrier called Go, which it sold in 2020 to easyJet。 and finally differentiated its services in several ways. BA now concentrates on longhaul flights, for which there are no lowcost carriers. In the shorthaul market, the carrier has held on to some market share by emulating the best practices of lowcost rivals, such as persuading customers to use electronic tickets. On every flig