It's always intriguing to emerge victorious in every battle, but how to achieve it? The fundamental principle is to precisely calculate the strength of both sides. War could be declared only when we are assured of victory, especially if we could win with ease. If not, 'go for the best'. While dodging, swallow smaller countries to strengthen ourselves, so that eventually we could defeat major enemy if opportunity knocks. The Han emperor Liu Bang defeated Xiang Yu in this way, and that is also true of Chairman Mao's Long March. In commerce, small firms have the chance of survival via choosing projects which were considered unworthy by great enterprises. Otherwise, it would end up like eggs smashed against rocks.

There are five factors in Sun Tzu's deliberation of winning a battle: the moral law, heaven, earth, the commander, method and discipline. 'the moral law' means working together from top to bottom as one; 'heaven' and 'earth' are right time and right place; 'the commander' refers to the generalship and human resources, 'discipline' is about regulations, bureaucratic establishment, measures and logistics. He had many other methods to calculate the probability of victory. In business, every enterprise needs to perform well on these five constant factors.

Sun Tzu stresses 'knowing', including 'knowing opponent in advance', 'knowing heaven and earth', and 'knowing the enemy and knowing yourself'. All of them involved spying on enemy. 'Knowing opponent in advance' means knowing how your enemy deploy manpower and material resources prior to the war. In that way you can evade the enemy's attack and strike back against its soft spot so as to crush the enemy. In case of market, if your major opponent planed a large scale promotion of some product, we could sell other products which they neglected. On the contrary, if we insisted on selling the same type of product, the performance must be very poor as it were eclipsed by their promotion.

'Knowing heaven and earth' refer to taking advantage of time and local environment. For example, if enemies were exhausted by rushing all the way to the battlefield or they were starving and out of provisions, it would be a good time to attack them. Topographical advantages refer to using favorable geographic positions. For instance, when our army rushed down the hill, the strike force would be multiplied. In business, it means taking advantage of 'the right time and right place', such as which fashionable clothing is suitable for selling this fall, what Hong Kong people could do during the 12^th five year plan of China, or how to invest in Hong Kong stocks in this summer holiday.

As for 'knowing the enemy and knowing yourself', it means using your own strong points to attack weak points of your enemy, or understanding the strategy and flaws of your opponents in order to defeat them. For instance, if you knew how a listed company transacts its own stock shares, you could swoop in. It's easy to yield twice the result with half the effort if the boss's behaves is known.

As Sun Tzu addressed, to win with ease you need to attack the inferior force with superior one so that your loss is minimized. Otherwise, it's likely to suffer severe loss. If your force is ten times as much as you enemy's, you can fight wheel war to exhaust enemy. If you fight against an enemy with equal power, you might get killed. For example, a small engineering company should not seek big project since its limited fund, manpower and material resources is liable to fail. A singe defeat would wipe it out so that there's even no fund to do small project in the future. Furthermore, no one would employ someone who lost his credit.

Sun Tzu stressed that one should attack enemy right on the weak points with your strong ones, not the other way around such as strong to strong , weak to strong, nor weak to weak. A great enterprise must compete with its deep pockets, such as famous brand agency, big shopping mall, and professional service and so on. A small company should compete with its low cost, high profit and intimacy.

On market, when some firms are facing bankruptcy, they will employ banker as CEO to exploit his financial ability to eliminate fiscal deficit. Other enterprises whose turnover is low would employ market experts as CEOs. Therein, enterprises need to employ CEOs with different specialties according to different time to solve their weak points. Meanwhile these CEOs could put their talents to use in different companies.

To beat the few with the many, you may move forces from other places without being known to attack the weak point of your enemy. This is so called Shift Resources. During the 1990s, New York had high crime rate for there's no extra budget to deal with it. However, they solved the problem by mobilizing police from crime free areas to high crime areas.

It is crucial to utilize combined energy in deploying forces. That is to say, one should pick out the right men and put them into proper position. Let's take basketball as a simple example: put three players forward and two players backward to form an offensive array; put two forward and three backward as defensive formation. In business, you need to employ experienced team and team leader instead of newly graduated college students to succeed in marketing.

Sun Tzu also said, 'starting after him to contrive to reach the goal before him', which means one should wait the enemy's movement to see its flaws first, then attack them or occupy the vital important position. In business, many companies enter markets only after the trend becomes clear, such as stock market, housing market or fashion market.

Moreover, Sun Tzu emphasized, 'imposes his will on the enemy, but does not allow the enemy's will to be imposed on him', which means taking control of the enemy and avoiding being controlled by the enemy. In business, many companies monopolized the distribution channel to prevent other brands from entering.

While fighting with enemy, you should seize its lifeblood so as to control the enemy. For example, if your enemy relied on credit, you could ruin its reputation in the media.

To win with ease, it's necessary to use the artifice of deviation, which refers to follow the path unknown to your opponents to assault them. It is so called 'Attack him where he is unprepared, appear where you are not expected'. On market, innovation is the key. You can be crowned with success if there's no competitor in your field.

Sun Tzu addressed that via sustaining the war by means of war, you could gradually build up strengths and resources. Eventually you could confront your major enemy and prevail. The enterprise kingdom of Mr. Li Ka-shing rose from little winnings to great.

Dr Fung is a Professional Engineer of Canada with more than 20 years experiences in project management of application software development. In addition, he had supervised numerous industrial projects as well. He is an international WHO's WHO of Professional of USA (1988).

Email: dr.mikefung@yahoo.com.hk