{"id":612,"date":"2015-08-23T17:28:23","date_gmt":"2015-08-23T16:28:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.veroniquenguyen.com\/?p=612"},"modified":"2017-03-13T12:06:13","modified_gmt":"2017-03-13T11:06:13","slug":"comment-renforcer-sa-differenciation-comment-echapper-a-la-commoditisation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.veroniquenguyen.com\/en\/comment-renforcer-sa-differenciation-comment-echapper-a-la-commoditisation\/vero\/23\/08\/2015\/","title":{"rendered":"How to escape commoditization?"},"content":{"rendered":"<strong>How to sharpen and consolidate your differentiation?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Differentiation is one of the most sought after generic strategy. It consists in delivering greater value, that customers are willing to purchase at a premium price. Well conducted differentiation strategies translate into superior financial performance, as iconic companies like Coca-Cola or Apple exemplify.<\/p>\n<p>When we think of differentiation, we tend to think of product or service differentiation, whereas a company can differentiate itself at every point of contact with its clients. Analyzing your client experience will provide you with insightful points of differentiation. Below is a non-limitative list of opportunities to differentiate during the entire client\u2019s experience. Can you make this whole process more fun, more convenient, more satisfying, less irritating, less worrisome?<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Clients become aware of their need for your product or service<\/li>\n<li>Clients find your offering<\/li>\n<li>Clients make the final purchasing decision<\/li>\n<li>Clients order, purchase and pay<\/li>\n<li>Your product or service is delivered<\/li>\n<li>Your product is stored. It is installed. It is transported.<\/li>\n<li>Your service is consumed.<\/li>\n<li>What your clients are really using your product or service for?<\/li>\n<li>Clients need help.<\/li>\n<li>Your products is repaired or serviced<\/li>\n<li>Clients need to return or exchange<\/li>\n<li>Clients do no longer use your product. Clients need to dispose of it.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>For differentiation strategy to be well executed, it has to be well-defined and easily understood by every employee, especially frontline agents. <em>What are the sources of differentiation? Do customers agree<\/em><strong>?<\/strong> Research shows that<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>most management teams spend little time discussing or measuring the sources of differentiation of their company and don\u2019t agree on what they are;<\/li>\n<li>80% of managers think their companies are strongly differentiated, when fewer than 10% of customers feel the same (Zook &amp;Allen, 2011).<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Differentiation has to rest on a few core resources and processes that reinforce one another (see our post on business model).<\/p>\n<p>There are two reasons why differentiation tends to fade with time : it is imitated or undermined by competition ; growth breeds bureaucracy, complexity and complacency. Companies drift away from their founder\u2019s beliefs and core capabilities (see the representative case of Starbucks).","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>How to sharpen and consolidate your differentiation? Differentiation is one of the most sought after generic strategy. It consists in delivering greater value, that customers are willing to purchase at a premium price. Well conducted differentiation strategies translate into superior financial performance, as iconic companies like Coca-Cola or Apple exemplify&#8230;.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":613,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[12,17],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.veroniquenguyen.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/612"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.veroniquenguyen.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.veroniquenguyen.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.veroniquenguyen.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.veroniquenguyen.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=612"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"http:\/\/www.veroniquenguyen.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/612\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":620,"href":"http:\/\/www.veroniquenguyen.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/612\/revisions\/620"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.veroniquenguyen.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/613"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.veroniquenguyen.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=612"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.veroniquenguyen.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=612"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.veroniquenguyen.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=612"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}