Joseph Schumpeter Quotes

There is no resting place for an enterprise in a competitive economy.

In the private sector, there is always innovation. There's always change. There's always improving productivity, and if you're not leading that, you'll be passed and ultimately go out of business. So there's an urgency to constantly update and renew and to rethink your enterprise.

If you don't drive your business, you will be driven out of business.

You have to be willing to risk things; otherwise, somebody else will put you out of business.

Business is war! Its leaders are strategic commanders, who boldly snatch victory from the jaws of defeat - and who perform other acts of derring-do. This kind of talk sounds great in the boardroom, and, for that matter, in the bookstore, where dozens of authors counsel would-be corporate warriors.

If you want to stay in the business then you've got to be a bit shrewd, haven't you?

Just as predatory animals follow a similar general design and behave in similar ways, so organizations, especially those in competition with one another, must follow certain design principles if they are to succeed and prevail.

No company can afford not to move forward. It may be at the top of the heap today but at the bottom of the heap tomorrow, if it doesn't.

We can reorient our products and business strategy because we are an agile organisation.

As a multisport athlete, I was always fascinated with competition and how to win. At HBS and later at the Harvard Department of Economics, I was drawn to the field of competition and strategy because it tackles perhaps the most basic question in both business management and industrial economics: What determines corporate performance?

In business, the competition will bite you if you keep running, if you stand still, they will swallow you.

Our employers today face numerous challenges and stiff competition from businesses all over the world.

We must compete or retreat.

Modern competition is often described as a fight of all against all.

Situations emerge in the process of creative destruction in which many firms may have to perish that nevertheless would be able to live on vigorously and usefully if they could weather a particular storm.

Sometimes, for businesses, competition can be inconvenient, because competition means that the race is never over, the game is never won. No matter how well you were doing in the past, there's always someone who are out there wanting to take your place. So the temptation to avoid competition is powerful. It's rooted in motives as old as Adam and Eve: in greed for yet more money, in fear of losing your position in the market and all the benefits it brings.

You have to do what the market requires of you... You either keep swimming, or you sink.

My focus has always been very much on what we're doing at Red Bull. We can't control what others do. It's not our business.

With experience also comes the understanding that you have to beat the rally before you can beat the competition.

In business, what do we do? We compete.

Franchises need to evolve or die.

Sales is survival, the best-prepared are most likely to survive.

Every successful enterprise has a very clear strategic purpose.

Just like a script, you need to keep a business plan to yourself.

An adaptable company is one that captures more than its fair share of new opportunities. It's always redefining its 'core business' in ways that open up new avenues for growth.