As a student of business literature, I am fascinated by the trends in thinking over the years. One idea I particularly like is the concept of "benchmarking." It makes so much sense to me - you look to the best in the business to study their methods, set that as your bar to be reached, then adapt it to your business.
The classic examples we get are studying L.L. Bean's sophisticated warehousing system for keeping inventory of FedEx's logistics for moving goods around. With benchmarking, it's ok to look outside of your industry. I suspect, however, that it is a lot easier for us to look at our competitors or peers in similar markets.
Now, W. Chan Kim and Renee Mauborgne, in a recent issue of The Wall Street Journal, tell us that benchmarking is just not good enough. Instead of trying to match XYZ Landscaping's customer service system, we're supposed to innovate, find value in places as yet unexplored, take some serious risks.
Hmm. That sounds pretty scary, and for many companies, it may sound impossible. What is there to innovate in the delivery of quality lawn care or landscape services?
Kim and Mauborgne tell leaders to concentrate on one concept: dominating the market. To do that, a company has to provide "radically superior value" and ask "frame-breaking questions." Note they don't say "lead the market" or "be competitive." They say "dominate" and use examples like CNN, Starbucks and Home Depot as companies which dominate because they innovate.
Sure, we all profess to the goal of dominating the market, but how much of that is lip service to a concept, when we're actually happy to be profitable and competitive? When the shoe leather hits the road, it's the fine points of offering "radically superior value" and asking "frame-breaking questions that make things happen. How do we do this?
It's hard to look at your business with a cold, critical eye and ask, "What value can we offer that our customers really need and will buy?" With services, this is particularly hard to quantify, but true innovators find those answers.
While you're at it, Kim and Mauborgne suggest refining your positioning in the market by asking what services your customers don't need, what services you can reduce, what services you should increase. And the most intriguing question is: what services have yet to be created that the market needs? There's no room for yes-men here - you need to get honest opinions, allow the expression of unconventional ideas and be prepared to take your business into places not yet visited.
That's a very difficult concept, yet it's also the way off building success through growth. It almost sounds like Star Trek's famous line, "To go where no man has ever gone before." I'm no Trekkie, but I still like that idea.
Explore the June 1997 Issue
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