How will you win?

“How will you win” is one of the key questions you need to answer within your strategy.

Here are 5 ways to think about how to achieve competitive advantage:

#1 – Michael Porter’s Classics

• Low Cost
• Differentiation
• Focus on a niche (some might argue that within the niche, you need to again choose low cost or differentiation)

#2 – Treacy and Wiersema’s Value Disciplines

• Operational Excellence (a little bit like low cost)
• Customer Intimacy, close customer relationship, tailored solutions
• Product Leadership, innovation and state-of-the-art products

#3 – Kim and Mauborgne’s Value Innovation

• Value Innovation is the simultaneous pursuit of differentiation and low cost
• Cost savings are made by eliminating and reducing the factors an industry competes on
• Buyer value is lifted by raising and creating elements the industry has never offered

#4 – Rumelt’s Sources of Power

• Rumelt lists 11 sources of power and mentions that there are more.
• The core idea is to find out what is critical or pivotal in a situation, and apply a coordinated and concentrated set of policies and actions, ideally leveraging your advantages, on the right target
• Here are the 11: Leverage, Proximate objectives, Chain-link systems, Design, Focus, Growth, Advantage, Dynamics, Inertia, Entropy (Granted, these sound a little abstract and take more than one minute to explain)

#5 – Sniukas, Lee, Morasky’s Three Types of Value Propositions

To win, you need to create value for:

• Customers
• Your Firm
• Ecosystem Partners

That value can be strategic, operational, or financial.

Call to Action:

How will you win?