Archives for posts with tag: competitive advantage

Your competitive advantage? Being human.

October 31, 2010 //

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Many businesses try to compete with price. Or compete with features. Or dependability. Convenience.

The problem is, most of these competitive advantages become commodities over time. Leading to a price (feature – you name it) race down to the bottom. Almost everything will become a commodity in the end. With the exception of being human.

Being human can’t be scaled (meaning: it can’t be bought), it can’t be institutionalized ( we immediately feel the difference between a disneyfied and a real human interaction) and your competitors can’t “out-human” you.

As a small coffee shop you can’t win against Starbucks on product reliability, supplier margins or advertising budget. Your competitive advantage is being human. It’s the hug my daughter gets every Sunday morning from her favorite barista. It’s them knowing our order in advance and having it almost ready when we walk into the door. It’s the real smile they put on their customers faces.

There are many customers that desire the reliability and efficiency of Starbucks. It takes a lot to keep this machine alive: loyalty cards, free WiFi, advertising dollars, etc. Starbucks has to invest constantly to attract the same audience over and over again. Being human doesn’t require that. Doing something special for a customer, won’t ever be forgotten. How do you value a hug? How do you value a smile? How do you value a human connection?

Being human is the most underrated competitive advantage

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Transform your business – Cure-alls and quick fixes (Part 11)

June 30, 2010 //

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There are no simple solutions to complex problems. In an enterprise, problems are interdependent; their solutions should be, too. Interdependent problems are systems of problems and their solutions must form a system. A system of solutions is a plan and all plans are complicated, almost never simple.

The reason why most management cure-alls and quick fixes fail is their neglect of the whole system and just focusing on one part of the system. These fixes part the whole system, treating it as an aggregation of independent parts. These manipulations typically fail because the performance of a system is not the equal to the sum of the performances of its essential parts taken separately, but the products of their interactions. For that reason, improvement of the essential parts of a system taken separately often does not improve and may reduce the performance of the whole. Another common deficiency is the failure of some quick fixes to take into account a social system’s developmental responsibilities to its stakeholders and the larger systems of which it is a part.

Let’s have a closer look at some of these fixes.

Downsizing

Downsizing fails more often than it succeeds. Within a short period of time after is implementation, costs tend to rise and serious morale problems usually emerge. Since many enterprise focus on shareholder value, the enthusiastic response of stock analysts often convinces the C-suite that they have made the right decision. I would argue, downsizing treats symptoms not the disease, thereby attacking effects, not causes. How come enterprises can lay off more than 10,000 employees and never realized in the months before the actual event that they employed more people than they need?

Enterprises are social organizations that are responsible for creating productive employment. Downsizing is a clear failure of living up to that promise. The principal source of excess personnel are bureaucratic monopolies within the firm. There are no economic indicators of the performance of bureaucratic monopolies. Neither the value of of their outputs nor their costs are generally known. Because their importance is judged by the size of their monopolies, they tend to grow as much as the subsidizer will allow. When it becomes apparent that a company is not as effective financially and competitively as it should be and is overemploying, downsizing is usually the first way out. But once it takes place, the bureaucratic monopolies continue to make work out of fear and grow as much as the system permits. And the vicious cycle continues.

And internal market economy is the most effective way is the most effective way of preventing or eliminating internal bureaucracies. An internal unit that has to compete against external resources must stay lean; it must eliminate or minimize excess personnel if it is to keep costs down to compete effectively.

Total Quality Management/Six Sigma

“Quality” as applied to products or services has come to be accepted as meaning “meeting or exceeding the expectations of customers.” “Total” quality should apply to all those who are affected by what an organization does: all its stakeholders. The objective of any system needs to focus on a quality organization, not only on quality products and services.

Enterprises can gain huge competitive advantages by focusing more on quality of work life and less on quality of products or services. Most employees/stakeholders regard Total Quality Management and Six Sigma as another path to exploit them, squeezing more out of them. On the other hand, when organizations strive to to improve the quality of work life, stakeholders will find new and innovative ways showing their appreciation. Quantity and quality of output will improve, even more when they are partners in quality improvement programs. Implementing quality improvement programs should be done from the bottom up, not directed by executives. It empowers all stakeholders and provides a feeling of ownership.

The biggest problem with Total Quality Management and Six Sigma is the failure to distinguish between efficiency and effectiveness. Meaning, it does not incorporate ethical or aesthetic evaluations of the products and services whose quality it attempts to improve .

Last but not least, continuous improvement involves relatively small incremental changes made close together in time. This precludes creative quantum leaps. Creative acts produce discontinuities, qualitative changes. Creative but discontinuous improvements are usually worth much more than a string of small but continuous improvements. More often than not, creativity is often discouraged in organizations because it so frequently is destabilizing and disruptive. Creative discontinuities are required to take the lead; continuous improvement is at best a way of getting closer to the leader. One cannot pass a leader by imitation.

In our next installment, we’ll talk about leadership and how to transform it.

Previous installations can be found here: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6 and Part 7, Part 8, Part 9, Part 10.

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The end of Strategic Planning

June 3, 2010 //

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Images: Courtesy of Music Philosophy (Mico, you rock!)

Strategic Planning was born around 100 years ago when the first cars went into mass production: The lack of product was vast and the economic landscape easy to oversee, making it easy for companies to adjust to changes immediately. Markets were slow and people believed humans can achieve anything, supported by Strategic Planning. This mechanical view of the economy and an enterprise left the role of Strategic Planning almost untouched and its importance has even grown over time.

Problem is: The world enterprises operate in has dramatically changed. In a world of saturated markets, educated people playing their consumer role rather unwillingly, globalization, terror attacks, ash clouds, etc. Strategic Planning becomes a farcical endeavor. Maneuvering an enterprise has become an illusion. But we continue to plan.

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Strategic Planning is a waste of time

Successful companies are highly flexible and adaptable in an ever-changing world and market. That’s the opposite of a plan: focusing on getting something done in a certain amount of time.

Let’s just have a look at the US government: Every year they plan on paying down the debt – and every year they face  new surprises: high unemployment rate, a Supreme Court decision, an oil spill. Immediately, all the Strategic Planning is out the door and projections have to be adjusted. Planning is not forward-looking, Planning is static and reactive.

Same is true for enterprises: The performance of a company is more often than  not influenced by factors out of their influence sphere: price of commodities change, currencies fluctuate or a banal law changes somewhere in the world and affects the performance of the enterprise – once again, projections have nothing to do with reality. This results in permanent frustration. And, companies develop the tendency to find someone to blame: Purchasing, Sales, Product.

Anyone who still hopes to control the future with numbers has no clue how markets work nowadays, doesn’t know how you can get optimal performance out of all stakeholders or just lives in a perfect world, fueled by selfish wishes and hopes.

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Executives don’t like change

The idea that executives don’t maneuver the enterprise through the stormy seas (Actually, it’s the other way around.) doesn’t fit in their MBA-fueled pipedreams of being the sole savior of this struggling ship. A myth born in the Industrial Age. In addition, executives believe they need Strategic Planning to control their employees. At its core, most managers believe their employees are lazy bums that can’t be trusted. (Honestly, without me they just wouldn’t do anything all day.) For that reason, employees need to get clear goals and constant observation.

Peter Drucker’s Management by Objectives (MBO) gave executives more fodder for their bizarre prejudice that people without objectives have no clue what to do. People wouldn’t work efficiently without planning goals. This resulted in an enterprise world gone crazy: Increase revenue by 13%, reduce costs by 12%, service has to increase their number by 10% for the next 5 years. Totally absurd. We call it: Management.

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Shift power from executives to all stakeholders

This absurdity we call management has to be replaced with a new paradigm:

  • Focus on relative goals
  • Empower your employees by trusting them 100% and allow them to react individually to demands of stakeholders
  • Focus on culture

Don’t stick to numeric goals: Would you want a NASCAR driver to win a race or plan for him to drive the race in 2 hours and 32 minutes? Foster a culture where it’s about winning not making numbers.

If a department/division/branch has problems, don’t let the executives take over. Stakeholders have to find their own way out of the mess and don’t need the savior from headquarter. This might leave the executives with less opportunities to congratulate themselves but will increase team morale dramatically. The role of leadership has to be be redefined: It’s not about controlling people. That breeds resentments. And crushes spirits.

It’s about inspiring people. Engaging them. Executives need to lead, not control.

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Redefine enterprise success

Executives have to throw away their outdated Org charts, their hierarchy thinking and the focus on their selfish goals. The new enterprise places stakeholders on the pedestal, makes humans not plans their focus. Once you place your trust in all your stakeholders and empower them, goals like shareholder value, executive salaries and bonuses will fall into place.

Enterprises need less goals, not more. Goals are overrated. Real success metrics are an organic byproduct of a real corporate identity. It shouldn’t be about corporate goals determined by a few, it should be about corporate identity lived each and every day by all stakeholders. Focusing on corporate culture will help enterprises to develop a congruent group of like-minded people. Forget the performance review. Lean on peer pressure as the guiding force.

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Strategic Planning vs Being Prepared

Strategic Planning means: Derived out of an executive vision of the future and assessment of the present, the company develops a plan that everybody has to follow blindly. Enterprises based on this belief try to manage the future.

Being Prepared means: We’re trying to be ready for any eventualities, we prepare, we’re staying intellectually fit, always question everything – never separate acting from thinking. Being prepared is an attitude. This attitude will allow companies to be successful in the future. Strategic Planning dooms them.

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Strategy has its roots in the military. Even the military doesn’t need mindless warriors anymore

The idea of Strategic Planning was based on the thought construct that there are two kinds of people: The thinkers, the directors, the controllers. And the mindless workers that do their task and don’t ask questions. Strategy is a tool to keep the doers from thinking and under tight control.

Since the markets control enterprises more efficiently than managers, what’s the value of managers hiding behind strategy decks anymore? Instead, every stakeholder has to think, adjust and do. What company still can afford to employ non-thinking people, happily entrenched in operations? That’s what automization is for.

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Perpetual Test Mode

Enterprises need to ask themselves constantly “How could I do this better?” even when everything works out fine right now. Once enterprises believe they’ve found the perfect model, they will switch into the mode “Why change anything?” And die.

Enterprises need to follow two paths:

  • Implement perpetual, incremental improvements. Why not improving a dozen of little things? Can you improve your website daily outside of the yearly refresh? Can you change the way customer service interacts with people? Are your key employees fully invested on Social Media Channels, always ready to reply? How can you move your company from good service to utter delight?
  • Think big: Some problems can’t be solved with incremental changes. They need significant innovations. How can you leap ahead of your competitors by rethinking how a problem can be solved?

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How to begin the transformation process

This is an unusual paradigm for enterprises. Everything they learned in business schools and on wooden conference tables is useless. Even more: counter-productive.

It behooves every employee to internalize this new world view. And start to develop multiple pilot projects or beta programs. A good first step would be to eliminate the yearly performance reviews and axe yearly planning.

Let’s face it: the world was not meant to be perfect and nobody can control it. We’re supposed to muddle along and work our way through challenges and problems. Once enterprises accept this fact, they have a chance to succeed in the future. Most importantly: As long as managers don’t trust all stakeholder, as long as they don’t believe people will work without control and incentives, just because they want to, as long as managers don’t change their thinking, enterprises will remain the places of outdated hierarchy, intellectual imprisonment and planned economy.

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What B2C needs to learn from B2B

February 22, 2010 //

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The B2B playbook is well known: B2B don’t focus on selling specific products, they are mostly focused on listening to customers and meeting their needs. Let’s say you are selling Cloud Computing. You have to identify first why a customer would like to switch: Lower computer and/or software costs, improved performance, improved document format compatibility, unlimited capacity, increased data reliability. In addition, sales people need to identify why customers might be hesitant to make the switch: Reliability, specific location of data is unknown, personal identifiable information can be distorted and a switch might disrupt the organization for a specific time. These insights allow you to organize your enterprise and sales organization based on customer needs, fostering long-term relationships by promoting whichever of the company’s products the customers values most at this moment in time.

Compare this customer focus to the current B2C landscape: Most companies still use the top-down method to develop products: Develop a new product based on (often) flawed customer research, such as focus groups or surveys. Hand the new product over to the marketing department which identifies segments to target, sets the price and promotions and develops the communication plan. The whole organization is set up to push products out, transact as much as possible. A short-term strategy that is showing decline in performance due to the need of consumers to develop relationships with brands.

Instead, brand have to focus on building lifetime value by humanizing the brand-people relationship and create a culture (followed by structure) to execute this new strategy.

One of the major changes in human relationship organizations is the elimination of the CMO position and transferring all responsibilities to the Chief Customer Officer. Forrester’s briefing titled “Customer Experience thrives with executive leadership” found that “firms with these leaders view customer experience as more important, have more enterprisewide customer experience efforts, report having fewer obstacles, do more primary customer research, and score better in all three areas of Experience-Based Differentiation.” Executive stewardship is imperative to implement the next steps:

  • Move CRM out of IT and into the customer department.
  • Use market research throughout the organization to improve customer lifetime value. As an example, R&D needs to work directly with people to develop products that answer emerging needs.
  • Sales and Marketing should be merged into one division, reporting to the new Customer Division. Sales needs to step up and help marketing develop communications because they are closer to the ground and understand what consumers desire.
  • Let your best sales people (your greatest fans) in and collaborate with them throughout the product development process.
  • Suppliers and other stakeholders should not deal primarily with procurement, they are customers as well and should be treated as that.
  • Develop new metrics that focus less on short-term goals and more on customer profitability and lifetime value. Extend these new metrics to financial reporting, helping the markets to understand that stock prices should reflect this new model. Focus on market share should be replaced by focus on customer equity value.

Transforming an organization to focus more on customers is a challenging task. However, continuing on the current path is not an option. Unless brands consider extinction an option.

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Shareholder value vs. Stakeholder value

January 21, 2010 //

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In a world driven by human and intellectual capital, traditional Org Charts, Employee Handbooks and most traditional tools that used to help enterprises to run their business have become increasingly unreliable and ineffective. High performance and value creation doesn’t originate from to traditional enterprise tools or new technologies, it originates from focusing on the human side of business.

Jack Welch had it right when he said: “The essence of competitiveness is liberated when we make people believe that what they think and do is important – and then get out of their way while they do it.”

Enterprises face the biggest challenges to humanize their business since their organizations are driven by spreadsheets and shareholder value. As we’ve learned throughout the Great Recession, many companies leveraged their future away by focusing on short-term gains, destroying long-term value over time.

While shareholder value will remain a dominant metric, businesses have to focus their attention more and more on their relationships with customers, employees, partners, and all other stakeholder groups. By investing in these relationships, businesses will be able to create long-term value and, ultimately, shareholder value.

We believe that those organization aspiring to succeed in the current socio-economic environment have to understand holistically who their key stakeholders are and what they want. They have clearly defined strategies to ensure that constant value is delivered to these stakeholders. They have implemented processes to support this strategy and understand the necessary capabilities to execute processes. And they have thought through and communicated what the organization needs from its stakeholders – Loyalty, profitability, investment, etc.

Too often, metrics are derived from strategy. It seems so obvious. But it’s a trap. You can go from A to B directly, pass by C or go from A to D to C and end at B. Strategy is not a destination, it’s a choice of one path you’re going to take. Metrics help you track whether you’re moving in the right direction. Most corporate initiatives are focused on incremental improvements – expand your business to a new market, grow your product line, find new consumers. All these initiatives are developed with the belief that they will enable the business to deliver better value to all its stakeholders. That’s why focusing on the stakeholder perspective is imperative to deliver replicable value, choose the right strategy and exact metrics. When formulating strategies, businesses need to consider the wants and needs of all their stakeholders. This is not limited to primary stakeholders, the view needs to be expanded to the general public, special interest groups, legal and regulatory community. If this broad view of stakeholders is not adopted, businesses run the risk failing to satisfy the needs of their stakeholders, opening themselves up for revenge on multiple Social Media channels.

So, what is the best path for businesses to increase stakeholder value?

1) Stakeholder Satisfaction: Who are the most influential stakeholders and what do they desire?

2) Performance Strategies: What strategies should the organization adopt to ensure the desires of stakeholders are satisfied?

3) Measurement: Metrics are required to track if the chosen strategies are actually implemented. Metrics help to communicate strategies throughout the organization. Metrics combined with incentives help to speed up implementation. And, ultimately, metrics help you determine if the chosen strategy was the right one and if not, why. When the measures are consistent with the organization’s strategies, they encourage behaviors that are consistent with the mission and vision of the business.

4) Align processes with strategies: What processes do we need to put in place to allow the strategies to be executed?

5) Capabilities: What capabilities do we require to operate these processes? Today, tomorrow and in the future?

6) Stakeholder Contribution and Collaboration: What contribution does the business require from its stakeholders to succeed? How can we maintain and enhance these capabilities?

This complex exercise will help your business to face the challenging socio-economic environment and adapt efficiently. Or as Jack Welch said:

“An organization’s ability to learn, and translate that learning into action rapidly, is the ultimate competitive advantage.”

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Categories Organizational change, Sales & Marketing Strategy