What is coopetition?
The competitiveness of an enterprise “…is a mechanism leading to the continuous improvement of the customers’ situation”. An enterprise must be prepared to present an offer that is more favorable than others in terms of price, quality, or characteristics influencing transaction decisions. In the colloquial sense, competition is rivalry or contest between two (or more) more or less equal rivals. Competitiveness as an exogenous feature is closely linked to the innovativeness of an enterprise, which is immanently dependent on the endogenous conditions of its functioning.
Coopetition (coopetition) is a tool and a form of competition. It consists of entering into agreements between enterprises in order to serve the customer more efficiently and compete more effectively in the market. Semantically, this term means “competing together” and can be considered in two aspects:
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cooperation of firms competing with each other in a given customer segment (coopetition-A),
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cooperation of firms operating in one supply chain in order to jointly compete with other firms for the favor of a given market segment (coopetition-B).
Theoretically, coopetition processes (type A and B) can move in two directions:
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cost reduction (demand-side coopetition, causing an increase in demand for the manufactured product)
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limiting the supply of products (supply-side coopetition, causing a decrease in the supply of the product).
The article comes from the magazine “Logistyka” 2002/4.