Sharpen your pencils - everyone has one or more competitive advantages. Businesses, departments, private organizations and any host of other entities have (or should have) some competitive advantage. If you do not have one or any you better come up with some! You generally need more than one. You must be constantly looking for your 'killer-app'. Even if you are in a commodity market you want to have some differentiator(s).
What are some differentiators?
You could start with a SWOT analysis. A focus team and BRAINSTORMING session will be very useful. You should have a cross-functional team if you are looking at a business area, product, delivery, etc. Look to have at least sales, marketing, production, quality, training, service, and even financial on the team. It can be amazing what types of advantages can be discovered and then exploited as a result of these team efforts.
Knowing your real competitive advantages is critical?
Things like more sales personnel may or may not be an advantage, for example. True competitive advantages must be sought out on an on-going basis. Once you know your advantages you must take action to make them tangible to your clients and customers. In other words you must act upon them. Build on your strengths. Build products or services based on these advantages - in that way your competitors are at a disadvantage. It is always good to keep in mind that your competition has competitive advantages too - how do you circumvent them?
What are some differentiators?
- We have all live (verses dead or robo) phone operators.
- Six distribution centers across the country verses three for the competition.
- Triple redundancy for power supplies at our co-lo facility verses two.
- All personnel are Microsoft certified in each of our service offerings.
- We serve only fresh beef, produce, etc.
- Our factory is in full compliance with Six Sigma standards.
- We are ISO certified.
- Each of our doctors has done post-graduate work at the Mayo Clinic.
- We offer the product in ten colors.
- Each of our recruiters is focused on a specific industry and skill set.
- My hand-to-eye coordination rate is in the top one hundredths percent in the world.
- Our food servers have more than 30 hours of customer service training.
- etc.
You could start with a SWOT analysis. A focus team and BRAINSTORMING session will be very useful. You should have a cross-functional team if you are looking at a business area, product, delivery, etc. Look to have at least sales, marketing, production, quality, training, service, and even financial on the team. It can be amazing what types of advantages can be discovered and then exploited as a result of these team efforts.
Knowing your real competitive advantages is critical?
Things like more sales personnel may or may not be an advantage, for example. True competitive advantages must be sought out on an on-going basis. Once you know your advantages you must take action to make them tangible to your clients and customers. In other words you must act upon them. Build on your strengths. Build products or services based on these advantages - in that way your competitors are at a disadvantage. It is always good to keep in mind that your competition has competitive advantages too - how do you circumvent them?
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