Well, I admit I don’t have accurate stats on swine flu but it appears that while it is very prevalent, it has not been as devastating as expected as the vast majority of patients recover.
Unfortunately, me-too-ness can be far more crippling as most companies don’t even know they have the disease.
Here are the symptoms: Your lead competitor offers a new product, changes a price or features a new service. So you do too! Can’t let them have a market advanatage after all! So, then it’s your turn and you do something they don’t and they match you back or maybe even up the ante. Pretty soon your businesses are near identical, you have escalated cost by adding things to your business model and forced your customer to choose on price, not differences. Sound familiar?
So what is the cure? Be different in some relevant way to the target customer that you select based on your companies strengths and capabilities. Growth is best found at the intersection of customer need and company capability. There must be something you can do better or differently. And if there isn’t, either be prepared for a long illness or take time to figure it out and then act on it!
By margaretreynolds www.reynolds-consulting.com
