Roy's Blog: December 2009
December 15, 2009
Look in every Nook and Cranny to BE DiFFERENT
Organizations are inherently rich in opportunity to BE DiFFERENT. The challenge is to land on a capability that not only plays to a competence the organization has, but also reflects a compelling need that a target customer group exhibits. Remember, it makes no sense to focus on something you do exceedingly well if it is not a high priority for the customer group you have chosen to serve.
Look to every dimension of your organization to be the custodian of competitive uniqueness: customer service and support, brand, information technology, employee expertise, marketing focus, strategic partnerships and product/service technology are all examples of aspects that could represent potential for an only claim for your business.
Most organizations tend to look to a product or service to create their distinctive edge, and technology plays an overwhelming role. Nothing wrong with this approach but it can be relatively easy for others to compete with you. The Smartphone market is a good example. The first mover was RIM with the Blackberry product and now their are numerous players - Apple, Motorola, Nokia etc. - all competing to get a piece of the action with their version of a smartphone. It remains to be seen if RIM can make another move to BE DiFFERENT while Apple’s iPhone with its broad applications portfolio continues to capture more of the market. I have said before that the plethora of app’s is a great example of customer learning on the part of Apple and of the ability to create Offers around each one that sets them apart from their competitors.
I like what Ganz did with the Webkins ‘product’. They took a commodity-ish product like a child’s plush toy and created a fun experience-based Offer around it using the capabilities of the internet. Check them out.
Customer service - or Serving Customers as I call it - is another area where companies claim they are DiFFERENT. Be careful to avoid the use of aspirational notions such as ‘We provide the best service to our customers’. Be specific about the experience your customers can expect from you that they won’t get anywhere else.
Think additive as you consider how to BE DiFFERENT. Create a product, for example, and extend it (like Ganz did for Webkinz) to include other value components. Look to the internet for help. The broader your Offer the more DiFFERENT it is likely to be NOW and the more difficult it will be for anyone to copy in the future.
Here are some nook and cranny steps:
- decide WHO you want to SERVE in terms of the group of customers that present the biggest opportunity for your organization
- Understand their greatest need
- study how others are satisfying the need
- define the capability you need in order to satisfy what your chosen customers desire
- figure out how you can either create this new capability or leverage an existing one to BE DiFFERENT
- think additive around a product-centric approach
- add an internet experience
- add a serving customers dimension
- ‘apple-ize’ your enhanced product Offer: make it flexible to appeal to a wide range of unique needs
Cheers, Roy
Remember to follow me on Twitter
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December 11, 2009
Be Good at Anticipating but Brilliant at Reacting
Business Strategy 101 gives us many tools and techniques to build the perfect plan. It offers structure in the SWOT process. It provides analysis in demand and forecasting models. It provides decision-making frameworks to assess the merits of various alternatives. BS101 is a mature discipline that has definitely helped organizations chart a course for their future.
Having said that, I have two issues with it. First, my 33 years experience in leading numerous businesses as a senior executive is that BS101 is far too complicated; too expensive; too time consuming in relation to the benefits realized and it raises the false expectaion that the strategy will actually work as planned in a world full of rapid change and unpleasant surprises. I covered this in an earlier blog The BE DiFFERENT Planning Process. If the essence of the strategy can’t be counted on to succeed why don’t we simplify the planning process so that it is not overly onerous and complicated? So that it is expedient and not costly?
I am a very practical person who has seen the folly of relying exclusively on BS101. I advocate an alternative that has been road tested in the real world. Dumb down the strategy building process, get your plan ‘just about right’ and execute it better than your competitors.
The second issue I have with BS101 is that it says virtually nothing about what I call the Principle of Reaction. This Principle reflects that successful Companies are brilliant at reacting to surprise events they did not anticipate and those that are unable to adapt struggle and die. Something Darwinian about it! How many strategies have you seen unfold the way you originally planned it? I have seen none; it is the Impossible Dream! The Principle of Reaction is the essence of the BE DiFFERENT Practice of Planning on the Run: Plan - Execute - Learn - REACT (Adjust) -Go Back to Execute.
The essentials of being a Great Reactor:
- Keep the strategy buiding process simple
- Get to the GUT issues you are facing
- Plot a course of action
- Execute flawlessly
- Learn what works and what doesn’t
- React to your results and adjust your directin
- Execute again
Cheers, Roy Osing
Remember to follow me on Twitter
Do the BE DiFFERENT Quiz
Related Blogs
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Roy’s Rule of Three
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December 8, 2009
Apple vs RIM: a BE DiFFERENT Battle
Lots of talk these days about Research in Motion’s performance vis-a-vis its smartphone competitors. Apple, HTC, Nokia, Motorola, Palm, T-Mobile and Samsung are a few of the Companies looking to take share from RIM’s Blackberry product. Once the domain of RIM, the smartphone space is becoming exteremely crowded as new technological capabilities push new product introduction.
RIM’s challenge is simple. It must find a way to BE DiFFERENT from its many competitors and give a unique, relevant and compelling reason why people should continue to choose them over everyone else in the market. At the same time they must start stealing Apple’s customers to build growing loyalty to their cause. So far, RIM has chosen NOT to reduce price as the way to compete; that is good but not enough.
I don’t think the VALUE offered by RIM is sufficient to hold off the likes of Apple who are invading the application space and customerizing the iPhone to reflect the myriad of lifestyle choices that people have. The winner will be the Company that can create value based Offers that meet the individual requirements of the multitude of customer segments that exist. If Blackberry holds prices up without adding value sufficient to support them, customers WILL migrate away from them FAST and they will have no choice but to accept their commodity role as a price player.
What go you here (the Blackberry had first mover advantage in the business space with limited applications) will simply NOT get you where you need to go in the future (the market is being defined by applications in both business and consumer spaces).
This is a critical time for RIM. Here are some BE DiFFERENT Practices they should consider:
- segment your market into as many small unique clusters as you can.
- pick the highest growth potential clusters and FOCUS on those few.
- look for opportunities to add VALUE Packages around your core product to ward off the strong Apple app focus.
- if you decide to compete on apps you better BE DiFFERENT then ‘the bad guys’ otherwise you will be commoditizing the space.
- look for another emerging VALUE space that looks promising and alocate resources to it. You need to make Apple irrelevant!
Bottom line for RIM is that they are at a cross-roads. Better choose the BE DiFFERENT path otherwisw THEY will be irrelevant.
Cheers, Roy
FOLLOW ME ON TWITTER
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December 5, 2009
Beware of Benchmarking
In Chapter Six of my book I discuss the enemy of BE DiFFERENT; the prolific concept that is used by most organizations - benchmarking.
Benchmarking, you might recall is a key component of the Total Quality Management (TQM) philosophy introduced by the Japanese to the western world and adopted by many organizations seeking to improve their overall performance. TQM topics such as DRTFT (Do it right the first time) and PONC (the price of non-conformance) and the Quality definition (conformance to requirements) pervaded the teachings of organizational leaders and were the hot topics of the day.
On top of the TQM concept pyramid was Benchmarking Best in Class with the following performance improvement process:first, identify the organization that excelled in the operation that you were ineffective (the Best in Class)and then, define the actions necessary to incorporate their operating systems, processes and methods with the hopes of improving to their levels of performance.
In sum, copy the best organization you can identify in hopes you can replicate their performance.
I believe that the benchmarking process is beneficial to improve the performance in some aspect of an organization’s operations. But understand that it incorporates a copy algorithm and as such does little to make you DiFFERENT. At best you achieve Best in Class levels which may return better results than previously obtained but unless you vault beyond these levels true differentiation is unlikely to happen.
Define Best in Class and establish them as the level to BE DiFFERENT from.
Look at organizations outside your particular line of business.
Set the Best in Class bar and then go beyond it.
This is the way to create BE DiFFERENT success for your organization.
Cheers,
Roy
Remember to follow me on Twitter
Do the BE DiFFERENT Quiz
Related blogs:
BE DiFFERENT Planning Procss
Change Leadership
Roy’s Rule of Three
Strategy Hawk
Plan on the Run
Cut the Crap
The Only Statement
Role of Your Strategy Document
Line of Sight Execution
Avoid Aspirational Intent
