Conversely, improvements in one activity will pay dividends in others. Companies with strong fit among their activities are rarely inviting targets. Their superiority in strategy and in execution only compounds their advantages and raises the hurdle for imitators.
When activities complement one another, rivals will get little benefit from imitation unless they successfully match the whole system. Such situations tend to promote winner-take-all competition. The company that builds the best activity system- Toys R Us, for instance-wins, while rivals with similar strategies -Child World and Lionel Leisure - fall behind. Thus finding a new strategic position is often preferable to being the second or third imitator of an occupied position.