When Competition Isn't What You Think

Five Forces That Matter More Than Your Competitors

Whether you like MBAs or not, every student of business learns about competitive frameworks - substitutes, direct rivals, market share battles and so on. But step into emerging or unstructured markets like Lagos, Jakarta, or Mumbai, and these neat models start to crack. The physics of competition here is a little….different.

I’ve watched a ride-hailing startup's leadership team confidently map out their competitive strategy against Uber and Bolt. Their pitch deck showed pristine market share projections and customer acquisition forecasts and everything the global incumbents did wront . Six months later, they weren't battling these anticipated rivals - they were navigating motorcycle union politics, grappling with sudden regulatory bans, and realizing their real competition wasn't other apps but deeply embedded transport behaviors. The same could be said for fintech….cash is a bigger competitive threat than another fintech. And for health tech….it could be the prayers for the Blood of Jesus 😇.

This gap between expectation and reality reveals that traditional competitive frameworks assume that markets are structured and that rivals battle over clearly defined territories. In emerging markets, however, competition is messier, more nuanced, and often invisible to those walking around with the abroad-tinted glasses.

Know your enemy….

Let's unpack five competitive realities that overturn conventional thinking:

1. Non-Consumption is Your First Competitor

Before you compete with other businesses, you compete with the absence of your market. For every fintech product that I’ve launched in Nigeria, our biggest rival wasn't other financial apps - it was cash culture and ingrained distrust of formal financial systems. Success required creating demand before capturing it.

2. Parallel Ecosystems Persist

In structured markets, new usually replaces old; formal replaces informal. But emerging markets operate differently - new and traditional systems often thrive side by side. Mobile money didn't kill banks in Kenya; it created a parallel financial system serving different needs. E-commerce in Nigeria hasn't replaced open markets; it's become an additional channel in a complex retail ecosystem.

3. Business Models Compete More Than Products

Netflix's struggle in Africa wasn't about content quality - it was about monthly subscriptions in daily-income economies. The battleground isn't features or pricing; it's fundamental economic structures. Your rival isn't another product; it's an entire way of doing business.

4. Market Creation Trumps Market Share

While companies in developed markets fight over existing customers, emerging market success often requires creating new consumption patterns entirely. When mobile telecom companies entered Africa, they weren't just competing for customers - they were building infrastructure and creating mobile usage habits from scratch.

5. Regulation as the Invisible Competitor

Perhaps most critically, government intervention can reshape entire markets overnight. Kenya's mobile lending boom collapsed with new regulations. Nigeria's motorcycle bans wiped out ride-hailing startups that thought they had achieved product-market fit. Policy isn't just a framework or a risk - it can be an active market force.

These realities demand a fundamental shift in strategic thinking. Instead of focusing solely on outperforming direct competitors, businesses must:

• Align with existing economic behaviors rather than trying to override them

• Build models that fit local income patterns and payment preferences

• Create parallel value rather than attempting to replace traditional systems

• Factor regulatory uncertainty into core business strategy

The implications reach beyond the typical 2 by 2 ‘competition’ slide in a pitch deck or tactical adjustments in response to say, a price change. When a fintech startup sees its competition as cash culture rather than other apps, it builds different features. When an e-commerce platform recognizes it's competing with trust systems rather than other websites, it designs different experiences for its customers - ones that build trust and drive change in behavior beyond switching from one product to another.

Success in this case, isn't about competing harder - it's about understanding what you're really competing against. The next time you map your competitive landscape, ask yourself: Are you fighting the right battles? Or are you applying structured market logic to unstructured market realities?

The arena is the same but the rules differ in some markets - like chess vs checkers. Winning requires a clear understanding of which game is afoot.