Within the last year, many industries experienced drastic pricing pressures in response to rapidly shifting buying patterns that left many markets with excess capacity (think of airline seats and hotel rooms during the pandemic when travel evaporated). If you happened to travel and needed a hotel room during that time, you likely experienced some of…
What is a price war? A price war is when one supplier (usually) believes they can secure more market share by lowering their price. “If we cut our prices, we can drive up our sales volume,” these companies’ leaders say. The war happens when competitors lower their prices in an effort not to cede market…
Some businesses have more measurements, controls, and processes than NASA. Others have virtually none. In my 30 years’ experience working very closely with hundreds of companies of all sizes, I have seen only a handful with metrics that are aligned with the highest buying criteria of their customers and prospects. Strategic differentiation depends on having…
What is a Value Proposition? If you surf the web and plug in your favorite companies and look at their value propositions (if they can even articulate one), you will find all kinds of buzz words and equations that sometimes ring true and sometimes do not. Many are aspirational. Companies talk a lot about what…
There is a long running discussion regarding sustainable competitive advantage. In particular, is a sustainable competitive advantage in today’s world of mass communication, electronics and AI even possible? Decades ago we were taught that you must have a sustainable competitive advantage to succeed. Books like In Search of Excellence, Good to Great and Built to…
Many businesses were able to “make a lot of hay while the sun was shining” so to speak during Covid.; the obvious pandemic benefactors being manufacturers of paper goods, chemicals for hand sanitizers, and retailers that benefited from a radical shift in consumer buying patterns. The other winners were the astute businesses that had the…
It is easy to acknowledge we live in crazy times, having to make almost daily adjustments to our activities. It is nearly impossible to find anything that is constant. But in our businesses, we must have some foundational metrics we can rely on that are meaningful and reliable. If I asked you to tell me…
If you are a frequent reader of our newsletters, you know we are passionate about companies identifying and communicating their competitive advantages. We have gone into detail about how important it is to “validate” your claims. It is simply not enough to show “98% documentation accuracy,” or “97.6% on time delivery,” without supporting evidence. Sometimes…
Way before the Covid pandemic hit, many businesses had been concerned about China’s impact on their bottom lines. Whether they sold B2B or B2C, we all have heard how companies’ margins are often razor thin because everything these days seems to be left to a price game. China, online shopping, cutthroat competition. It can be…
Everyone of us will pay more when we see a true value proposition. If that were not true, we would all be driving cheap cars. We would do our grocery shopping at Dollar Tree. None of us would buy an iPhone or an Android. We all want value. Each of us defines value differently but…