GMAT Essays (AWA)

"The presence of a competitor is always beneficial to a company. Competition forces a company to change itself in ways that improve its practices."

Discuss the extent to which you agree or disagree with the opinion stated above. Support your views with reasons and/or examples from your own experience, observations, or reading.


Although the issue of whether the presence of a competitor is always beneficial to a company is not black and white and many experts object to the statement that having a competitor is always beneficial, I agree with the above statement because a company can learn from its competitor and the manager of the company will usually be more hardworking if there are competitors around.

First, having a competitor is beneficial because the company can benefit by learning from its competitor. For example, the company can learn the good aspect of its competitor and apply to its business to improve the bottom line. Other than the good aspect, the company can learn about the mistakes that its competitor is making and the company can try to avoid it. Thus, having a competitor is beneficial for company.

Second, having a competitor will benefit a company because the manager will be more hard working. For example, the manager's performance can be accurately judged as there will be a platform for the directors to compare. Also, the manager will work harder for fear that the company lose to its competitor and close down. This will help to improve the profit and is good for the company.

On the other hand, some may argue that having a competitor will cause the company profit to down. These individuals may point to the fact that customers are lost to the competitors. However, this reasoning is flawed as usually a company's customer base is so huge that the company will not be able to service the whole customer base. By not having competitor, the company's service may drop to a point where no one wants to buy its service. Therefore, having competitor will make sure its standard is reasonably good and people will still want to buy its service. Thus, it will improve profit.

In conclusion, it is good to have competitors as a company can learn from its competitor and the competition will cause the manager to be more hard working. Although some may argue that the profit will go down because of competition, it is not true as competition will usually cause the service to improve and more customers to buy its service.