Judo Business Strategy

A plan for managing a company by using speed and agility to mitigate the effect of its competitors, as well as to anticipate and take advantage of changes in the market through new product offerings. The judo business strategy consists of three components: Movement (using the smaller size to act quickly and neutralize a larger competitor's advantages), balance (to absorb and counter the competitor's moves) and leverage (using the competitor's strengths against it).

The strategy is named after judo, a form of Japanese martial arts and was used as a metaphor in the book "Judo Strategy" (2001) by David B. Yoffie and Mary Kwak. The origins could go further back to "judo economics," a term coined by economists Judith Gelman and Steven Salop to describing a strategy when starting a company in a sector dominated by a large competitor.

One of the major aspect of judo is to use the size of the opponent against him. As a business strategy, it is designed to give smaller companies an advantage by using the perceived advantages of a larger competitor - namely size - against the competitor.