We have a live business case in the United States presidential politics where Donald Trump has built his product (campaign), and designed everything to win against an opponent (Biden). He was well ahead, and was on the path to coronation as the dominant market leader, with superior market positioning.
As he mounted a national pitch event (the Republican national convention) to sell his product vision to Americans, he focused on that competitor (Biden). To a large extent, most Americans bought the product, and he added extra 13% of the market share. Looking at the trajectory, I called the election for him!
Then, the competitor evolved, and morphed into another “product”. Yes, Biden dropped out and his party has a new product (Kamala Harris). Magically, the perceptions of the customers (voters) have shifted and in a very dynamic market, Trump has lost market share leadership:
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“In a recent Reuters/Ipsos poll* conducted after President Biden’s decision to step down from the presidential race, Vice President Kamala Harris has taken a slight lead over former President Donald Trump, with 44% support compared to Trump’s 42%. This marks a significant shift in the race, with Harris gaining momentum following her campaign launch. The poll also indicates that in a hypothetical three-way race including Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Harris maintains a four-point lead over Trump. Harris has launched her campaign with a rally, criticizing Trump and promising to unite her party.”
In business, the past is largely gone. Your product may have been viable yesterday, but is it still viable today? For Trump, he needs to evolve, as a new product has been unveiled by the other party. Otherwise, that will be it for him
*polls mean nothing; they will move and shift. Some polls show that Trump is ahead. The best poll is the one on election day. But we will be using this topic to draw lessons on business as we always do here.
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Trump had the momentum last week through Sunday morning, until Biden dropped out. From that point, every coverage turned to Biden dropped out, Biden dropped out and endorsed Harris, with this, it’s hard to hear anything else but Biden and Harris. Next is to see if Harris can maintain momentum until Democrats national convention next month. If she does, depending on her performance in formal acceptance speech, it could stick or go burst from that point.
Right now the sentiment is not much about who can lead, but a sort of new vs old paradigm, no major take on policies yet. The play continues.