March 26, 2010

Is a Competitive Edge Good Enough?

Words describe strategic intent and I have a real problem applying ‘soft’ or ‘incremental’ words to the critical business function of sustainable differentiation and survival.

Competitive edge means to me that your intent is to be slightly better than your competition. Is that what we really intend? I hope not! A ‘slightly better’ strategy leads to things like:
- more price promotions.
- PR campaigns based on a lofty vision.
- products that break down less frequently.
- the sporadic introduction of customer appreciation days.
- ‘smile’ training for service employees.
- technology adoption based on its availability from suppliers.
- aspirational claims in the market like ‘the best network’, or highest quality services.

The driver of a ‘slightly better’ strategy is what the competition is doing, and you spend all of your time looking to ‘one-up’ them. You are constantly in a reaction mode with no long term strategy and everything gets done incrementally. In addition, predicating your strategy on the actions of the competition to the exclusion of your customers is survival limiting at best. Your organization WILL die, the only question is when.

Lets start to use words that compel us to do something truly great for our organization; success and survival demand us to do so. Here are some words that I think provide the right BE DiFFERENT motivation to create a strategy that will assure long terms success:
- dominate the competition
- prevail over them
- cripple their efforts

A strategy with these types of words as its mentor will result in:
- a unique product that can knock down a fire in 30 seconds.
- a child’s plush toy extended to include an Internet experience.
- a woman’s wedding and graduation shoe supplier that includes dancing lessons with each purchase.
- a jeweller who loans a diamond ring to a valued and trusted customer.
- a smartpone supplier that mass-customizes applications to meet the divergent needs of its customer base.
- a marina in the San Juan Islands that creates such a consistent DiFFERENT boating experience for mariners, they keep coming back for more.

Competitve edge? NO! Dominate and Cripple will get your the strategy you need to survive in these harsh times. The road-kill of those that didn’t think this way are unfortunately too numerous to mention.

Cheers, Roy

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Posted 3.26.10 at 07:07 am by Roy Osing | Read Comments (1) | Leave a Comment