Why does it matter to have a competitive business? There are many good answers, but the automotive industrialist Henry Ford summed it up best: "The competitor to be feared is one who never bothers about you at all, but goes on making his own business better all the time."

The best competitive enterprises don't look at their peers for a reason to stay competitive. Instead, they look for new opportunities and unused advantages. They don't compete with others as much as they compete with themselves, creating internal cultures that allow their talented people to create bigger, better, and more efficient things, be it a new product or a better way to do things inside the business.

No wonder another business icon, Steve Jobs, said, "Innovation distinguishes between a leader and a follower."

But how do large corporations build such cultures? Here are examples that have worked for other big businesses.

The 20 Percent Project

Google is a giant with many great products and services. But few realise those products and services didn't just arrive through product strategies. Instead, in its early years, Google encouraged staff to experiment, an activity it codified with its 20 Percent Projects. It's straightforward: they wanted staff to spend a fifth of their paid time on pet projects or skills unrelated to their other work, and Google allocated Fridays as the day of the week when staff could spend on those projects. One of the results was Gmail.

The 70 Percent Rule

Making decisions in business can be harrowing, so many of us put things off until we have all the information we can get. But not Amazon's founder Jeff Bezos. Instead, he prefers the 70 Percent Rule. This idea states that you should make your decision on something once you have around 70 percent of the information. Why? First, having 100 percent of the information doesn't raise the chances for success, but 70 percent makes it easier to change things and ensure success. And, according to Bezos, trying to make up the gap between 70 and 100 percent can take longer than getting to 70 percent.

Self Disruption

There are two types of animals on the savannah: ones that look out for change and the rest watching those watching for change. As you can imagine, the first group has a first-mover advantage while the rest are reactionary. Competitive businesses shouldn't be reactionary, which is where 'self-disruption' comes in. Self-disruption is when a business creates internal competition against its products. For example, the tobacco giant Phillip Morris spends billions researching non-tobacco and 'post-smoking' products. The company isn't waiting for someone else to change its market—it's taking the lead.

Crowdsourcing

Crowdsourcing has become a fashionable idea where you ask outside groups for ideas. Not many large businesses use this concept, but those that do it right get a lot of mileage. Pun intended because the Ford Motor Corporation is one of those companies. The Ford Consumer Innovation Office encourages consumers to submit their ideas to the company. This channel helps the company add new features and understand more about its customers. Ford also runs internal crowdsourcing: its IdeaSpace innovation accelerator encourages any Ford employee to offer suggestions, and it hosts regular innovation events to stir ideas among Ford employees.

Know Thy Culture

When the Vienna Sausage Co. built a modern factory, they expected more efficiency. But what they got was inferior hotdogs. Why would a state-of-the-art factory underperform against the old factory? It wasn't because of technology. Instead, the company eventually realised that their factory was too efficient. In the old factory, it took a specific employee over an hour to complete their rounds, but only minutes at the new site. The hotdogs needed more time, so the company artificially lengthened the process—and the hotdogs' quality returned. The lesson: pay attention to what works in the business, then see if replicating or enhancing it will boost competitiveness. A business' culture is often the keeper of what makes the company competitive.