"Mama, the boys are taking over all our customers and we should do something about this competition!" Mama Ngina, the owner of Platinum Salon, was getting sick and tired of these constant warnings from his staff about new and upcoming salons all over Nairobi.

In the early 1990s, shortly after returning from UK, she had launched what was then regarded as a premier salon on Main Street. The salon had velvet swivel chairs, wide mirrors and professional groomers ever snappily dressed in white jackets. To cap it all, the salon had an air conditioner and cool water was served for clients. Soft calypso music played in the background to the comfort of patrons.

Platinum Salon was the first of the kind and it caught on like a wild fire. It's location in an upscale part of town lured in trendy customers who abandoned the old backyard salons for the modern one. The business boomed and Mama Ngina used most of her profits to invest elsewhere in real- estate.

Aware of her success a few old salons borrowed and moved into Platinum territory but with a refined look. Gone were the days of iron chairs and rusted scissors; in came leather seats and gleaming clippers. As well, some of the new comers introduced a variety of services on the menu like massage. More so, for the same kind of services they would half Platinum's price.

As the customers realised that for the same services they could get them at a lower price and in a more appealing environment one by one they abandoned Platinum Salon for the new trendy hide- outs. It is then that staff started pestering Mama Ngina to modernise Platinum.

"We need to get new chairs," they cried to her. "See the salon next door. It makes ours look like a cave."

"Those people are just copying us," blurted out Mama Ngina who hated comparing her business to others. "We have been in business for long and they don't know what there are doing. Have you looked at the type of their customers and compared them to ours!" She dismissed one concern after another.

Tired of being rebuffed one day one of the leading barbers at Platinum quit for the salon next door. On learning so, Mama Ngina fumed and labelled him a betrayer. "I am the one who taught that boy the trade and he has run away with all my secrets," she spat and cursed. "He was nothing before I hired him. You can never trust an African with your business."

Demoralised at the lack of progress, more staff quit, a number even going out to set up their own salons. Since she believed in ancestor worship, Mama Ngina, decided to consult a fortune teller.

"Slaughter 10 cocks and bring me their gaping beaks with Shs100,000," the fortune teller intoned. In spite of Mama Ngina hurrying to commit the rivalry to her business even got more ferocious. Finally, the fortune teller hinted, "You have an arch rival who does not wish you well. The ancestors need a human head without blemish to take care of him sealed with Shs200,000."

Mama Ngina chickened at the prospect of human sacrifice. She then got hold of a young lawyer and filed a costly suit against all those copying her services. She had also formed a Salon Traders Association with the goal of making it hard for new comers to join the business by raising standards.

Registering the association took a great deal of time and money that, by the time she was done, the once fabled Platinum Salon was completely bankrupt and soon closed

Competition is good

It has been said that no body likes competition except customers. For customers, competition means lower prices for the same goods and services, more variety and courteous services. Yet for most business owners competition should be stopped through some closed - door legislation or simply mocked off for offering inferior services.

You see it happening all the time. "Those Indians and Chinese are selling lower quality goods at half the price. There are cheats!" Oh, right. And, buyers since there are that dumb, continue to flock to the same low- quality Indian shops and fly out to China to bring in discounted wares which guess what, customers love.

Learn from Competition

The best way to manage competition is to accept and learn from it instead of burying one's head in the sand and fuming that someone else has also captured a good idea.

There is an old business saying that if you are doing something worthwhile and nobody is copying it, then it is not good. All successful managers should live safely in the knowledge that if they come across an idea that mints gold it is only a matter of time for copy cats to arrive.

The effective manager beats off competition not by complaining but by benchmarking and modernising his goods and services in a way that customers continue to vote in his favour.

A story is told of a young American retailer called Sam Walton setting up a small shop across the giant super market chain K-Mart. Sam would spend most of his day inside K-Mart recording their prices and returning to discount his rival. K- Mart ignored him; today Sams' empire covers nearly two thirds of the globe. As for K- Mart, once the giant of American retail business, it is a relic of the past.

The writer is Head of General Management Division at UMI.