|
Why Should You Strive To Become a Market
Leader?
Excerpts from
"The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing," Al Ries, Jack Trout and Paul
Temporal
It's
better to be the first than it is to be better.
Being first in any
category is going to give you the edge – being the leader comes from
being first. It's much easier to
get into the mind of
consumers first than try to convince people you have a better product or
service than the one that did get there first.
Improvements are always made to product/service inventions and
innovations
but the first in has a head start. Once you are the leader, a position
mostly gained by being first, it is pretty hard for
competitors to dislodge you, as long as you keep your products up to
date and of comparable
quality.
Further, the first in to the market has the
opportunity to have its brand name
adopted as the generic category name. Once you are first and get the
consumers to buy your brand, often they won't bother to switch. People tend
to
stick with what they've got.
What It Takes To Become a Market Leader?
The market leader is dominant in its industry
and has substantial market share. If you want to lead the market, you must
be the industry leader in developing new
business models and new products
or services. You must be on the
cutting edge of
new technologies
and innovative
business processes. Your
customer value proposition must offer a superior solution to a
customers' problem, and your product must be well
differentiated...
More
4 Entrepreneurial Strategies
By: Peter Drucker
More
DOs and DON'Ts of a Successful Innovator
By: Peter Drucker
DOs
Start small – try to do one
specific thing
Think big – aim at
market
leadership...
More
Steve Jobs' 12 Rules of Success
-
Strive to become a
market leader. Own and control
the primary technology in everything you do.
If there's a
better technology available, use it no matter if anyone else is not
using it. Be the first, and make it an industry standard....
More
Case in Point
GE: Lessons from Jack Welch
"When you're number four or five in a market,
when number one sneezes, you get pneumonia. When you're number one, you
control your destiny. The number fours keep merging; they have difficult
times. That's not the same if you're number four, and that's your only
businesses. Then you have to find strategic ways to get stronger," says
Jack Welch, the legendary former CEO of
GE.
"Evolve a game plan, a business strategy "number one, number two,"
advises Jack Welch.
Build on what the company does best. Have a
Unique Selling Proposition
based on
giving customers value that competitors cannot equal or surpass.
Become more concrete, more focused. In business, the strong survive, the
weak do not. The big, fast ones get to play,
the small, slow ones are left behind. There is a competitive advantage
of being the best – or the second best – that can, and should, be
exploited. Winners and
market leaders will be those who insist upon being the number one or
number two
fastest,
leanest, lower-cost, world-wide producers of
quality goods or services and those who have a
clear
technological edge or a clear
competitive advantage in their chosen niche.
Competitive Strategies
 To be successful today, your company must
become competitor-oriented. You must pursue the right
competitive strategy –
avoid strengths of your competitors and look for weak points in their
positions and then launch marketing attacks against those weak points.3...
More
Case in Point
7-Part Competitive
Strategy of Microsoft
Although Bill Gates, Founder of
Microsoft, built his empire on technological products, his business
mastery is even more important than his technical skills, and his
competitive urge is a huge driving force.
The early success of Microsoft was founded on
the company's 7-part competitive strategy...
More
Venture Strategies
The most successful companies are those that
have developed aggressive venture strategies and have made ventures critical
components of their strategic and operating success. In ventures, large and midsized companies can
discover a source of
growth they are striving to achieve. New business creation has become
central to achieving strategic and
financial objectives
of market champions.
Fast Company
In the
new economy where everything is moving faster and it's only going to get
faster, the new mantra is, "Do it more with less and do it faster".3...
More
10 Inspirational Leadership
Roles
-
Make relentless
innovation a religion...
More
Best Practices
Google: 10 Golden Rules
Encourage creativity. Google engineers can spend up
to 20 percent of their time on a project of their choice.
There is, of course, an approval process and some oversight,
but basically we want to allow creative people to
be creative.
One of our not-so-secret weapons is our
ideas mailing list: a companywide suggestion box where
people can post ideas ranging from parking procedures to the
next killer app. The software allows for everyone to comment
on and rate ideas,
permitting the best ideas to percolate to the
top...
More
New Business Models
 Traditional corporations, using old business
models, are overstructured, overcontrolled, and
overmanaged, but underled. Top managers should rather concentrate on that
handful of real
managerial leadership
tasks that will bring success in the future.
Thus, a
new business model is emerging, a
model where "most of key missions of the organization are distributed to the
myriad individual pieces and unity comes from the vigor of people and the
free flow of knowledge, not a burdensome central headquarters."4...
More
The Art of Innovation: 9 Truths
By: Guy Kawasaki
-
Jump to the next curve. Too many companies duke it out on the
same curve.
 If they were daisy wheel printer companies, they think
innovation means adding
Helvetica in 24 points. Instead, they should
invent laser printing. True innovation happens when a company jumps to
the next curve – or better still, invents the next curve, so set your
goals high...
More
Sustainable Competitive Advantage
Sustainable competitive
advantage
 is the prolonged benefit of implementing some unique
value-creating strategy based on unique combination of internal
organizational
resources and
capabilities
that cannot be replicated by competitors.
Sustainable competitive
advantage allows the maintenance and improvement of your
enterprise's competitive position in the market. It is an advantage
that enables your business to survive against its competition over a
long period of time...
More
Four Types of Market Dominance
Strategies...
Three Generic Business and Marketing
Strategies...
Differentiation Strategy...
Strategic Intent...
Fast Company...
Owning Your Sustainable Competitive
Advantage...
Fast Decision Making...
Eliminating Bureaucracy...
Relentless Growth Attitude...
Driving Growth Through Innovation...
Idea
Management...
Radical Innovation...
Leading
Innovation...
Value Innovation...
Strategy Innovation...
New-to-the-World Product Development...
Process Innovation...
Technology Innovation...
The Fun
Factor...
Marketing Innovation...
The Power of Taking a
Different View...
Entrepreneurial Action...
Managing
Innovation by Cross-functional Teams...
Case in Point
IDEO...
Case in Point
AT&T: Developing New Credit Card Service...
Case in Point
Silicon Valley Companies...
Case in Point
British Petroleum...
Case in Point
Quantum...
Case in Point
Charles Schwab...
Case in Point
GE...
Case in Point
Dell...
|
