How to Create a Competitive Makeover

Article posted by The Scribe from C12group.com

The alarm sounds after a sobering report reveals your industry is stagnating and your company is losing market share to an incursion of competitors wanting to carve-off a substantial piece of your share.

So how are you going to change ‘the game’ and improve your company’s market position? You will need reliable and up-to-date data collected from:

- Targeted customer research regarding unsatisfied desires and next generation expectations


- Industry benchmarking to highlight strengths, weaknesses and opportunities


- Tracking reports capturing reasons for customer additions and defections

This information is used to form a strategy to fend-off the incursion of competition and increase your share of the stagnant or shrinking market.  But keep in mind there is a danger in just focusing all your resources toward short-term combat with competitors.

 

According to Don Barefoot, CEO of The C12 Group, “Simply focusing on our immediate competition (instead of what’s truly possible) leads to ‘me- too’ mediocrity. Preoccupation with competitors can cause some or all of the following:

- Loss of Brand Identity: Competitors in a given area can copy one another’s products, services, and methods to the point where it’s hard for customers to distinguish between them, forcing unhealthy ‘commodity’ pricing battles.


- Local Myopia: Companies can get so focused on their local struggle with each other that they lose sight of their customers and markets and become an outdated local fraternity (e.g., U.S. textiles, furniture, televisions, etc.).


- Incrementalism: We become so reactive and busy with minor cost-reductions, that breakthrough innovations that would create serious savings or enhanced value are overlooked.


- Short-term-itis: We’re so concerned over short-term sales and income that we ignore vital long-term strategies, opportunities, and the overall health of our business model. This steals the resources necessary to fuel innovation and results in change coming about defensively, only in response to a crisis.

Read full article on C12group.com

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