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Centre of gravity

Centre of Gravity

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Definition & Summary: Building a focal point of talent or activity that attracts the best resources to your organization . Offensively, it means creating such a concentration of expertise (or data, or customers) that the market orbits around you, giving you a sustained competitive edge.

Detailed Explanation: The term comes from military strategy; here it's about being the gravitational center in an industry. The purpose is to encourage a market focus on your organization -- e.g., make your company the place top experts want to work, or where startups want to be acquired, or the platform everyone builds on. Key principle: invest in or acquire elements that increase your pull: flagship projects, thought leadership, perhaps location (like Silicon Valley effect). When successful, a centre of gravity strategy means even competitors feed into your momentum (e.g., by copying you or joining your ecosystem). It's a long-term play; origins in idea of clustering -- like how Cambridge or Stanford attract innovators.

Real-World Examples:

  • Tech Hub: Silicon Valley itself -- companies like Google, Apple, Facebook created such strong centers of gravity that talent in tech naturally migrates there. For a single company, Google's focus on AI research in the last decade (publishing papers, open-sourcing TensorFlow, hosting AI conferences) has made it a centre of gravity for AI talent . Many of the top AI minds either work at Google or collaborate with them. This gives Google early access to ideas and a say in the field's direction.

  • Open Source Ecosystem: Red Hat became a centre of gravity in enterprise open source. By investing in open source projects and building a culture and business around them, talent and enterprise customers gravitated to Red Hat for anything Linux. This heavy presence meant even competitors like IBM had to partner or at least consider Red Hat's influence (IBM eventually acquired them).

  • Hypothetical: A biotech firm deliberately sets up its research HQ in a renowned university town and funds a lot of academic partnerships and PhD programs. Over a few years, it becomes known as the place where cutting-edge biotech research is happening (a magnet for scholars). Smaller biotechs cluster around it hoping for partnerships or buyouts. The firm's labs and events become the hub of that biotech niche. As a result, the firm sees first look at breakthroughs and can hire the best students. This centre of gravity yields a pipeline of innovation and star talent that competitors elsewhere struggle to match.

When to Use / When to Avoid:

  • Use when: You are in an innovation or talent-driven industry and can afford to concentrate resources to become a leader in a domain. If having superior people or data scale is a durable advantage, building a gravitational pull secures that advantage. Also, if the industry is highly networked, being the hub yields outsized influence (like controlling standards or narratives). This strategy shines if you have a head start and want to reinforce it -- success breeds more success as others flock to where the success is.

  • Avoid when: If you're far behind -- creating a center of gravity from scratch is hard; it's easier if you have some momentum. Also avoid if you're in commodity industries where talent or idea concentration doesn't matter as much (e.g., being center of gravity in, say, generic manufacturing won't yield huge advantages beyond scale you might already have). If resources are thin, you might not be able to create the allure needed (half-hearted attempts won't attract people).

Common Pitfalls:

  • Overconcentration risk: You might over-invest in one location or field and miss innovation happening elsewhere (not-invented-here syndrome can form if you think all good ideas come to you).

  • Sustainability: Centers of gravity can shift. If you falter (e.g., mismanage culture), the talent can disperse as quickly as it came. Constant effort is needed to remain the hot spot.

  • Competitor response: Rivals might counter by building their own hubs or poaching from yours, especially if you concentrate people (e.g., Microsoft opened big labs in Boston and other places to access talent not wanting to move to SV, to counter the Valley's gravity).

Related Strategies:

  • Talent Raid others might raid your hub, or you might raid to build your hub
  • Alliances/Co-opting forming alliances can increase your gravity as more attach to you
  • Alliances (mutual benefit) or Co-opting (strategic absorption of ecosystem participants) can increase your gravity
  • Sensing Engines a center of gravity often yields a sensing engine effect. E.g., Google's position in AI gives it consumption data and insight, like a sensing engine .

Further Reading & References:

  • Wardley, S. -- "Creating a focus of talent to encourage market focus on your org." . Highlights talent concentration as key to pulling the market.

  • Example: OpenAI's center of gravity -- in recent years, OpenAI (with Microsoft's backing) has become a center of gravity in large language models; top talent and startups align with it or its models (ChatGPT). Articles discuss how others (Google etc.) are reacting to OpenAI's gravitational pull in AI.

  • Economic cluster theory (Michael Porter) -- though at regional level, the concept of competitive advantage via clusters underpins the idea that being the central cluster firm yields advantages.