"It's a SMART, SMART, SMART, SMART world” The winners score over mediocre certainly by being smart and operating differently than "incumbents" that operate in traditional ways.

(a) Companies that outsmart the competition look for dramatic growth, while incumbent businesses are content with incremental growth

(b) Companies that outsmart the competition make strategic choices based largely on intuition and foresightedness, whereas incumbent businesses are often get bogged down in research and analysis

(c) Businesses that outsmart their competitors stay focused on what they do best, while incumbent companies are often searching new ideas and end up losing their sense of purpose in the process

(d) Companies that outsmart competitors focus on their customers on how they can better serve their customers; incumbent companies focus on their competitors.

(e) Companies that outsmart the competition accept risk as normal part of doing business. For incumbents, risk drives decisions and hampers progress

(f) Short-sightedness of shareholders prevents many incumbent companies from doing what they need to do to grow.

(g) Companies that outsmart their competitors have a culture that values and freely promotes innovation. Incumbents subject innovation to a cumbersome process. But innovation must be deeply embedded in a company’s culture and encouraged at every turn.

(h) Companies that outsmart competitors depend on culture to manage behaviour. Incumbents use rules and controls.

(i) Companies that outsmart competition engage all their people in constructing and executing strategy, whereas, at incumbent organizations, strategy is often an abstract for most of the people.