A Merchant company is not intrinsically wedded to a particular product or customer base, but it is always looking for a way to deliver its value proposition and to make a profit.   

Ikea is a good example of a Merchant company.  You may not think of them that way as they are quite focused on customers, but making a consistent profit is central to everything they do.  Think of what it is like to walk into an Ikea store.  Central to the experience is the way that they provide you with as many opportunities as they can to buy things – things that you never knew you needed.  They will sell you anything they can make a profit out of, from furniture to plants to tools to electricals to food. 

You might think that a Merchant company would be quite cold and calculating to deal with, but Ikea shows that this is not necessarily the case.  Making a profit does not mean ripping people off or not caring about customers.  Ikea offer value for money – that is central to their value proposition.   Because they have a sense of fun and are very straightforward about what they offer (and what they don’t) they come across as warm and honest.   That is the power of being authentic with customers – a hallmark of the Aletheian approach.

Ikea has some core staples but it also regularly changes its offering.  This illustrates the flexibility of a Merchant company – they are always on the lookout for new opportunities to deliver on their value proposition and to make a profit. 

A company that takes the approach of a Craftsmen is dedicated to providing a superb product – whether that is a physical product, an app or a service.  The organisation believes that if you build and sell a high quality product –  the best that you can produce – then you will automatically make profits.

When you deal with a Craftsman company you will encounter people who are passionate about their service or product and who want you to get the most out of every feature.  They will want their product to be useful and enjoyable to use.  Their passion for their product is almost palpable. 

Apple in the early days under Steve Jobs was an extreme example of a Craftsman company.  Jobs empowered his engineers and developers and shared their passion to ensure that every little detail was perfect, so that his products worked well and were a pleasure to use.  He obsessed over the feel of the keyboard as much as over making the software intuitive.  His team’s pride in their products was symbolised by the fact that the signature of every engineer who had worked on a particular model was engraved inside the machine. 

Dyson is another example of a Craftsman company.  After he found that the suction from his vacuum cleaner was disappointing, engineer James Dyson immediately made a prototype of a new type of vacuum using cardboard and tape.  He drew inspiration from the sawdust extraction fan he had seen at a local sawmill.   He spent the next 10 years obsessively trying to get the product right, making over 5,000 prototypes before he felt that his cyclotronic vacuum cleaner was ready to be put in the hands of consumers.  Despite the cost, he was not going to sell a product until he was satisfied that it was good enough.

A company with a Warrior spirit is entirely mission focused.   That mission might be to beat the competition and become number one in its sector, or the pursuit of excellence for its own sake, or it might be to achieve some other commercial or social goal.  The organisation believes that success is defined in terms of that goal and that other measures (such as profitability) are secondary.

Intel is a good example of a Warrior company.   It is entirely focused on its mission to create the very best processors, and to retain its position by beating the competition through every new generation of computers.  Their mission is never complete, because there is always the next product to develop.

It can be quite thrilling to deal with a Warrior company.  People don’t deal with top law firms or investment banks such as Goldman Sachs because it gives them a warm feeling.   They do so because of their relentless professionalism, their dedication to excellence and their strong desire to win.  It makes you feel like your company deserves the best.  It can be exciting to be around such a full on, high calibre organisation. 

A word of caution.  Many companies have missions of one sort or another, but that does not make them all Warrior companies.  For the true Warrior company the mission is all consuming – it is not simply a way to achieve some further objective, such as a way to make higher profits.