Look at the specific ways in which you compete in the marketplace as well as what makes you unique. Then decide how technology can redefine the way you compete. For example, when was the last time you bought something from the Polaroid Company? At one time, they were the king of instant photography. But then technology and digital photography changed their industry, and the way they competed (instant photography) changed…but Polaroid didn’t change with it.
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Posts Tagged ‘Competition’
Always Take Competition Seriously
The Hydrogen Car Has Finally Arrived
Honda has rolled the first mass-production fuel cell automobiles off the assembly line. Called the FCX Clarity, the revolutionary new car looks and drives just like its gas-powered counterparts, but produces no harmful emissions. It’s powered by a specially designed, 100-kilowatt fuel cell that’s 65 percent smaller than other designs, leaving enough interior room to carry four passengers comfortably, while boasting a top speed of 100 miles per hour and a range of 280 miles.
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Unified Communications
Competition is continuing to increase in all areas. To become more competitive and profitable is often accomplished by lowering costs and increasing efficiency. It can also be accomplished by creating new products, services and markets.
The vast majority of businesses focus on lowering costs because product and service innovation is often seen as a new expense, and a new risk. From an employee standpoint, they have seen year after year of relentless downsizing, or as it is often called, rightsizing. In other words, far fewer people to do more and more work. That is not a big problem, as long as technology is used to dramatically increase each worker’s productivity.
The problem we often run into is that communication technologies that were meant to help us save time, such as cell phones, e-mail, group ware, audio and video conferencing, and instant messaging, to name a few, can actually take our valuable time as well. Not only that, but electronic gadgets are useless if the person you’re trying to reach is unreachable.
An early attempt to solve this problem was Unified Messaging. The idea was to bring together all types of fixed and mobile communications into a single delivery system. With voice, data, and video traffic all on the same network, users could send any type of message without having to consider how the recipient would receive it. In other words, I might leave someone a voice mail message and they might read it in their e-mail. Getting all of your messages in one place is good, but now we can do even better – getting a fast response from the person we are trying to reach!
Now, thanks to the majority of companies moving over to voice over IP (VoIP), it is possible to combine all forms of communications with “presence.” Presence lets users know who’s reachable where and when. If you have ever used instant messaging, you know when a person is present or away from their computer. This ability to know if the person you are trying to reach is actually there is a powerful business tool. By adding VoIP capabilities such as presence to Unified Messaging, we can now achieve what is being called Unified Communications. Not only are your communications unified with the power of presence, they can also be embedded in your applications. For example, sales people at a client location could reach out to experts for fast answers and get them without leaving their sales software application. Ask yourself: How much time would you save if you could reach key people with one call or e-mail?
Keeping Up Is A Fools Game
Keeping up—with technology, with competitors, with anything in business or life—is a fool’s game. Think about it… When you’re keeping up, what’s the advantage? In reality, there is no advantage to keeping up, because all you’re doing is making yourself just like everyone else. You’re finding out who the best is and then you’re copying the best. But by the time you get as good as the best, the best has already moved on to something better, and you’re still far behind.
Realize that “benchmarking” is just a fancy way of saying “keeping up.” When you benchmark you’re simply identifying the best practices of what others do well and then striving to imitate them. Again, once you reach the benchmarked standards, the company or person that set the benchmark has already moved on to achieve higher standards.
So how do you gain advantage and truly stand out from the crowd? The key is to forget about keeping up and set a new standard for yourself and your company. Consider the following suggestions.
LOOK TO THE FUTURE
Rather than keeping up, smart business people benchmark in a way that looks to the future. When they plan their future growth, they ask themselves three key questions: 1) Where are the successful companies evolving to? 2) What path are my competitors on right now? 3) What’s the logical progression of the industry?
Asking these questions enables you to go beyond your competition and get off the treadmill of keeping up. It opens your eyes to future possibilities—to stay ahead of the pack instead of side-by-side with them. Remember: Only when you go beyond your competition will you find advantage—and the financial rewards competitive advantage brings.
DO WHAT THE MASSES DON’T DO
Most businesses do exactly the same thing as their competitors and then wonder why they don’t have the upper hand. For example, determine if there’s a better customer you can go after—one that’s better and different than what everyone else is going after. Can you customize your product or service for the better customer so that the better customer would want what you offer and not what the competitor offers? A process of constant innovation and differentiation provides you with new levels of advantage on an on-going basis.
Perhaps there was a time when it made sense to play the one-upmanship game of keeping up with the competition. But the dramatic changes spawned by science and technology has made that a perilous game for the present and a formula for disaster for the future. Those who merely “keep up” are usually so caught up in meeting their day-to-day challenges that they can only worry about the future, while the real business innovators see the present as a stepping stone they can use to get to a bigger and better future.
A new world is taking shape before our eyes, and no company can afford to hide out in the old familiar places. While it’s important to stay abreast of changes and update your company as new technologies and developments unfold, it’s just as crucial to distance yourself from the competition and embrace a forward thinking mindset that will enable you to turn tomorrow’s opportunities into today’s profits.
Our World is Changing. Are We Ready?
In recent years, global competition, especially from China and India, has been causing many Americans to wonder whether we are in danger of losing the tremendous lead, and earning power, we have had over other countries for the past 50 years. To see the future of American business, it’s a good idea to begin by taking a look at what is happening in our schools. After all, the future workforce is already there for us to see.
In recent tests of general knowledge, U.S. 12th graders performed well below the international average for 21 countries. In addition, an advanced mathematics assessment conducted in 15 countries revealed that eleven of the 15 countries outperformed U.S. students. In 2004, more than 600,000 engineers graduated from institutions of higher education in China. In India, the figure was 350,000. In the U.S., it was 70,000.
Now, I know what many of you are thinking – our graduating chemists and engineers are better. Perhaps, and perhaps not. Regardless, we need to consider that: 1) many of the functions that businesses need chemists or engineers to perform can be done by average engineers and chemists, and 2) the rest of the world is rapidly upgrading their universities to close the quality gap with regard to education standards.
Is the U.S. ready for global competition? In light of these facts, it doesn’t look good. But Americans have a long history of doing amazing (and even seemingly impossible) things once we accept the facts and focus our collective minds and efforts on taking action!
