Are You the Leader of Your Pack?

by Al Weber, President, Tweed-Weber, Inc.

As a research company that does strategic planning, we view all of our research design and reporting activities through the lens of “what does this say about our client’s degree of differentiation.” Good strategy directs an organization to leverage its strengths to mitigate its weaknesses to capture market opportunities. However, in the long run, none of this matters if it doesn’t enable the organization to gain and sustain a measureable advantage over its competitors.

To identify the competitive point from which our client is starting, we regularly go to our client’s customers and ask them to assess our client relative to other similar organizations. These organizations are frequently direct competitors. It’s at this point we are able to determine if our client is competitively differentiated or just one of the pack. Because we are a non-threatening third party with good interviewing skills, we find our survey respondents are surprisingly candid.

In our survey design process, we will identify a number of performance areas that our client believes are important to their customers. These areas can include customer service, product quality, innovation, relationships, reputation, value for price, overall price, etc. We will then ask those customers to evaluate our client as either the “market leader,” “one of the pack,” or “market follower” in each of those areas. The results speak volumes, and it is often the first time our client has statistically valid confirmation of how differentiated they are (or are not) in their market.

In a recent competitive assessment for a logistics company, for instance, their customers unambiguously declared they were the market leader in all areas except price, where they were rated as competitive or one of the pack. It was exciting to congratulate them for developing a competitive advantage that enabled them to not have to rely on price to sell their services. In another assessment of an apparel manufacturer, we were able to tell our client they were perceived as a market leader in value. This, to the dismay of some sales folks, shot holes in their “our prices are too high” complaints.

Unfortunately, it is not uncommon to have to tell a new client that they are completely undifferentiated. Worse yet is telling them they are negatively differentiated. That is, they are a market follower, best known for their weaknesses. While this is certainly undesirable news, isn’t it always better to know the bad news than simply suspect it based on declining sales or increasing customer flight? 

Any company that invests in data that can reliably define it as a market leader can plan to capitalize on the opportunities that come from that competitive differentiation. If the company is merely one of the pack or a market follower, it can focus on improving its performance and moving the needle on its market position.

If you would like to know if you're leading the pack, give us a call. We can help you Know More, so you can Do More. Call us toll-free at 1-800-999-6615, email us at mail@tweedweber.com, and/or visit us on the web at www.tweedweber.com. Also, be sure to follow us on LinkedIn (Tweed-Weber, Inc.) and Twitter (@TweedWeber).