Game Theory, Strategy and Coopetition

Portmanteau is blending of two words to form a new word. Portmanteau of cooperation and competition is coopetition. The word has become quite popular in area of business strategy. Game theory expert Barry J. Nalebuff has written book on this called Coopetition.

The Game Theory shows that payoffs for both players are highest when they cooperate, while payoffs are lowest for both when they compete.

Usually strategy of competitors is to go for zero sum game, i.e. one should benefit at the cost of other, but coopetition enables two competitors to work together on certain project, as a result of which both benefit.

Japanese automobile company Toyota and French automobile company Peugeot are competitors, but they worked together to design small cars, this helped in sharing development costs.

The cars are manufactured at common factory in Czech republic. The Toyota version of car is called Toyota Aygo while Peugeot versions are Citroën C1 and Peugeot 108.

Another example of coopetition is Amazon allowing third party books sellers to use its platform, this is beneficial for both. Amazon also provides content to Apple, due to which both Kindle and iPad benefit.

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