Be Different or be dead

June 11, 2018

6 absolutely insane actions that will kill your business growth

Source: Unsplash

6 absolutely insane actions that will kill your business growth.

Every organization wants to grow; the way they hope to achieve it is by gaining a sustainable strategic advantage over their competitors.

However in my experience I find that many of the more common practices used by organizations are actually counterproductive to the intent of achieving an unmatched position in the marketplace — they work against the intent of standing out from everyone else. They don’t actually represent an effective way to achieve a growth imperative.

The practices below are typically followed by most organizations today. They are very common yet, ironically, they are positioned as an aid to help differentiate an organization from their competitors yet they have the opposite effect.

The very fact that they are followed by the masses means that they can’t possibly create uniqueness, they create sameness.
They serve no strategic driver; they typically are a response to either internal interests — keeping costs down — or with the belief that since the experts — academics or strategy advisors — advocate them, they must surely work as a means to differentiate and grow.
But they don’t.

These are the common tactics organizations employ to grow their business.

Avoid them at all cost.

They will only stunt growth.

1. Following others — Looking to another organization for new ideas and believing that this approach will grow a business — commonly referred to as employing best practices.
The process is well known: find a best in class organization that does what you want to do and incorporate their methods and solutions into how you do business.

And there seems to be a halo effect around applying best practices. It’s almost like you are wise and creative to be in the best practice copying game. You are somehow among the elite if you are ‘applying best practices’.

The problem is that strategic advantage is achieved by innovating and by being different from the competition.
The best practices approach may help improve operational processes but it will never produce strategic benefits — it’s not a strategic driver of long term growth.

2. Snubbing the frontline — Treating the frontline as if they were at the bottom of organization. And in frontline positions, applying modest recruiting standards with minimum skill and competency prerequisites.

The problem is strategic advantage is determined by how well an organization executes, and this is largely in the hands of frontline employees. Treating them as second class citizens encourages them to deliver second class results.

On the other hand, if they meet high standards and are honoured in their work, they will catapult any organization ahead of any competitor.

3. Outsourcing — Managing call centers to control costs. Maximizing throughput and productivity. Rewarding employees who take the most number of calls and spend the least amount of time on each call.

The problem is strategic advantage is achieved by creating memorable experiences for customers; this is rarely achieved by imposing internal productivity constraints on the customer transaction. Rather a WOW! experience happens when the customer is amazed with the outcome of the call.

Treat the call center as a customer loyalty center to create an advantage.

4. Pursuing mass markets — Searching for opportunities in mass markets. Pushing solutions to as large a market cross section possible.
Looking for lowest common denominator solutions that apply to the masses to maximize competitive market share.

The problem is strategic advantage is earned by discovering and satisfying the unique wants and desires of individuals not by flogging products to the masses. It’s gained by maximizing the share of wallet not share of market.

It’s the result of serving the chosen customer group so they never leave.

5. Offering special deals to get new customers — Prioritizing new customer acquisition to fuel revenue growth. Trying to gain new customers by enticing them from their current suppliers through special deals and promotional offers -  ‘With every purchase of our internet service you will receive a free flat screen TV.’

The problem is strategic advantage requires a healthy base of existing customers who are loyal and willing to be an active source of new business referrals. Offering special deals to attract new customers while ignoring current ones can lose business and destroy market position.

6. Paying too much attention to the strategy — Spending too much time seeking the perfect plan. The strategy doesn’t deliver results; brilliant execution does.
Yet so much time and attention is paid to formulating the perfect plan using all of the sophisticated tools available, with the underlying belief and expectation that if the strategy uses the rigour of the state of the art toolbox then it must somehow be right — and get closer to perfection.

I have been involved in many painful planning sessions where we have tried to squeeze another 10% more accuracy out of our plan to no avail rather than use our time to determine how to implement the imperfect plan that we had created to that point.

Absolute rubbish.

Competitive advantage is achieved by organizations that can execute imperfection brilliantly not by the efficacy of their strategic intent.

Take a close look at the portfolio of tactics used in your organization to gain strategic advantage; make sure you’re not fooling yourself.

Cheers,
Roy
Check out my BE DiFFERENT or be dead Book Series

• Posted 6.11.18 at 04:04 am by Roy Osing
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