he Art of War and todays business have many common characteristics. Sun Tzu has analyzed war from different angles like moral laws, time period, chances of life and death, skills of the commander and the maintaince of the army. The same analyses can be made for todays business environment. War is a position where only the strong have the ability to survive, or at least the stronger ones have the higher probability to survive. Similarly todays business environment and the character of business people, their agressiveness, motivation, stress are all

similar to ancient soldiers and commanders. The comparisons between war and business life are similar in five ways. ‘These are the way, the weather, the terrain, the leadership and dicipline. ‘ First of them is the way. In war the way you have to avoid from the strong andstrike at weak. Therefore at the beginning when you want to grow your business you don’t neet to challange stronger rivals at first, you have to grow first by challanging the weak rivals in the business. The weather is the business conditions in modern terms.

In dry weathers Tzu proposes to fight by fire but not in rainy weather. this means if you are challanging a rival in business environment you have to consider the global business cycle and the national conditions at first to acquire the target. for examole Demirbank had an asset value of nearly 5billion$ before the crisis of 2001, but it is rumored that HSBC acquired it for nearly 300million $ after the crisis, a bargain! The terrain is the ground wherew the battle, or attack is taking place. Differrent terrains bring different tactics.

A large battlefield has different strategy than a narrow passage. In terms of business the business environment the constitutional and legal framework, the socio-political institutions in the country can be determinant for the strategy to be choosen. For example a large frenchizing firm say IKEA may choose to open its own stores in Europe, where terrain is solid and massive but in Turkey it may choose to frenchise to another national firm because of the slippery terrain. The leader in war is the commander and it stands for ‘the virtues of wisdom, sincerely,

benevolence, courage and strictness’. Similarly the manager has to be a symbol for the employees in the firm. His attitudes and moral values, his confidence and tactics should be respected in the firm. Else the firm may lose efficiency and may become a sheep for the wolves. In addition the manager should have good comminication with his sub-managers, if not the workers can not be willing to challange the rivals. Finally the dicipline for an army is important. It brings control, flexibility under different

conditions and fast and proper organization. Similarly business needs good organizations where every single individual knows its job and responsibility, wnd also monitored by the supervisors systematically. A small mistake may cause firms to lose their prestige, profit and in the end their business. Similarly if a watchman falls asleep the army can be ruined. A few years ago a wrong design of tires for Ford cars by Firestone caused thousands of cars with bursting tires and Ford nearly lost its leading place to other firms because of that mistake.