Differentiation Strategy Quotes

Launching a similar product still needs some kind of differentiation.

Approaches to differentiating can take many forms: design or brand image, technology, features, customer service, dealer network, or other dimensions.

quality differentials have a tendency to erode as an industry matures

no forces interfere with the process of entry by competitors, profitability will be driven to levels at which efficient firms earn no more than a “normal” return on their invested capital. It is barriers to entry, not differentiation by itself, that creates strategic opportunities.

The most important characteristic of content marketing today is not quality or quantity. It’s insight. And that is the differentiator lacking almost everywhere.

Branding is the art of differentiation

The real strategic differentiation is to create true value, look forward, not backward, and present the advanced uniqueness to shine through.

In a nutshell, Blue Ocean Strategy is about creating completely new industries through fundamental differentiation as opposed to competing in existing industries by tweaking established models. Rather than outdoing competitors in terms of traditional performance metrics, Kim and Mauborgne advocate creating new, uncontested market space through what the authors call value innovation.

Here’s the short version of how to practice mindfuless: 1. Start with two minutes. For two minutes a day, direct your attention to your breath: the way the air comes into your body and your chest and belly expand, and the way the breath leaves your body and your chest and belly deflate. 2. The first thing that will happen is your mind will wander to something else. That’s normal. That’s healthy. That’s actually the point. Notice that your mind wandered, let those extraneous thoughts go—you can return to them as soon as the two minutes are up—and allow your attention to return to your breath. 3. Noticing that your mind wandered and then returning your attention to your breath is the real work of mindfulness. It’s not so much about paying attention to your breath as it is about noticing what you’re paying attention to without judgment, and making a choice about whether you want to pay attention to it. What you’re “mindful” of is both your breath and your attention to your breath. By practicing this skill of noticing what you’re paying attention to, you are teaching yourself to be in control of your brain, so that your brain is not in control of you. This regular two-minute practice will gradually result in periodic moments throughout the day when you notice what you’re paying attention to and then decide if that’s what you want to pay attention to right now, or if you want to pay attention to something else. What you pay attention to matters less than how you pay attention. This is a sideways strategy for weeding trauma out of your garden. It’s a way of simply noticing a weed and then deciding if you want to water it or not, pull it or not, fertilize it or not. The weed of trauma will gradually disappear as long as at least half the time you choose not to nurture it. And the more you choose to withdraw your protection from the trauma, the faster it will wither and die. Mindfulness is good for everyone and everything. It is to your mind what exercise and green vegetables are to your body. If you change only one thing in your life as a result of reading this book, make it this daily two-minute practice. The practice grants the opportunity to “cultivate deep respect for emotions,” differentiating their causes from their effects and granting you choice over how you manage them.

The term supply chain is not new. It is fundamental to military strategy. It was the difference between winning and losing in the Napoleonic wars and the Battle of the Bulge in World War II. The

A third path that a business can follow—an offshoot of our two main strategies—is pursuing a highly targeted market and focusing its resources on serving that tight segment, whether through cost leadership or differentiation. This is the focus strategy.

What differentiates the success stories from the failures is that the successful entrepreneurs had the foresight, the ability, and the tools to discover which parts of their plans were working brilliantly and which were misguided, and adapt their strategies accordingly.

It is conventionally believed that companies can either create greater value to customers at a higher cost or create reasonable value at a lower cost. Here strategy is seen as making a choice between differentiation and low cost.21 In contrast, those that seek to create blue oceans pursue differentiation and low cost simultaneously.

Stem cells, as you probably know, are capable of turning into any mature cell. They are the progenitors of all the other cells in your body, whether bone, skin, brain, or muscle. Neural stem cells (NSCs) are just slightly more differentiated: they can become any type of cell found in the nervous system, including any variety of neuron in the brain.

As shown in figure 2-2, to break the trade-off between differentiation and low cost and to create a new value curve, there are four key questions to challenge an industry’s strategic logic and business model: Which of the factors that the industry takes for granted should be eliminated? Which factors should be reduced well below the industry’s standard? Which factors should be raised well above the industry’s standard? Which factors should be created that the industry has never offered?

A firm may achieve differentiation, yet this differentiation will usually sustain only so much of a price differential. Thus if a differentiated firm gets too far behind in cost due to technological change or simply inattention, the low cost firm may be in a position to make major inroads. For example, Kawasaki and other Japanese motorcycle producers have been able to successfully attack differentiated producers such as Harley-Davidson and Triumph in large motorcycles by offering major cost savings to buyers.

What differentiates mediocre people from exceptional ones is how deeply they process. Most people are surface-level processors, but the best of the best go much deeper. Long-term thinking versus short-term thinking is the difference between a grand master and an amateur. Surface-level processors are looking for a quick fix. They are thinking only one move ahead, and their goal is to make the issue disappear for now. Deep-level processors look beneath the surface for causes. They are thinking several moves ahead and planning a sequence of moves to make sure the issue doesn’t happen again.

To make good choices, you need to make sense of the complexity of your environment. The strategy logic flow can point you to the key areas of analysis necessary to generate sustainable competitive advantage. First, look to understand the industry in which you play (or will play), its distinct segments and their relative attractiveness. Without this step, it is all too easy to assume that your map of the world is the only possible map, that the world is unchanging, and that no better possibilities exist. Next, turn to customers. What do channel and end consumers truly want, need, and value-and how do those needs fit with your current or potential offerings? To answer this question, you will have to dig deep-engaging in joint value creation with channel partners and seeking a new understanding of end consumers. After customers, the lens turns inward: what are your capabilities and costs relative to the competition? Can you be a differentiator or a cost leader? If not, you will need to rethink your choices. Finally, consider competition; what will your competitors do in the face of your actions? Throughout the thinking process, be open to recasting previous analyses in light of what you learn in a subsequent box. The basic direction of the process is from left to right, but it also has interdependencies that require a more flexible path through it.

The physical structure of the Internet presents a suggestive story about the concentration of power - it contains "backbones" and "hubs" - but power on the Internet is not spatial but informational; power inheres in protocol. The techno-libertarian utopianism associated with the Internet, in the gee-whiz articulations of the Wired crowd, is grounded in an assumption that the novelty of governance by computer protocols precludes control by corporation or state. But those entities merely needed to understand the residence of power in protocol and to craft political and technical strategies to exert it. In 2006, U.S. telecommunications providers sought to impose differential pricing on the provision of Internet services. The coalition of diverse political interests that formed in opposition - to preserve "Net Neutrality" - demonstrated a widespread awareness that control over the Net's architecture is control of its politics.

To understand how commodity money emerges, we return in more detail to the easy money trap we first introduced in Chapter 1, and begin by differentiating between a good's market demand (demand for consuming or holding the good for its own sake) and its monetary demand (demand for a good as a medium of exchange and store of value). Any time a person chooses a good as a store of value, she is effectively increasing the demand for it beyond the regular market demand, which will cause its price to rise. For example, market demand for copper in its various industrial uses is around 20 million tons per year, at a price of around $5,000 per ton, and a total market valued around $100 billion. Imagine a billionaire deciding he would like to store $10 billion of his wealth in copper. As his bankers run around trying to buy 10% of annual global copper production, they would inevitably cause the price of copper to increase. Initially, this sounds like a vindication of the billionaire's monetary strategy: the asset he decided to buy has already appreciated before he has even completed his purchase. Surely, he reasons, this appreciation will cause more people to buy more copper as a store of value, bringing the price up even more. But even if more people join him in monetizing copper, our hypothetical copper-obsessed billionaire is in trouble. The rising price makes copper a lucrative business for workers and capital across the world. The quantity of copper under the earth is beyond our ability to even measure, let alone extract through mining, so practically speaking, the only binding restraint on how much copper can be produced is how much labor and capital is dedicated to the job.

But perhaps one should reverse the problem and ask oneself what is served by the failure of the prison; what is the use of these different phenomena that are continually being criticized; the maintenance of delinquency, the encouragement of recidivism, the transformation of the occasional offender into a habitual delinquent, the organization of a closed milieu of delinquency. Perhaps one should look for what is hidden beneath the apparent cynicism of the penal institution, which, after purging the convicts by means of their sentence, continues to follow them by a whole series of ‘brandings’ (a surveillance that was once de jure and which is today de facto; the police record that has taken the place of the convict’s passport) and which thus pursues as a ‘delinquent’ someone who has acquitted himself of his punishment as an offender? Can we not see here a consequence rather than a contradiction? If so, one would be forced to suppose that the prison, and no doubt punishment in general, is not intended to eliminate offences, but rather to distinguish them, to distribute them, to use them; that it is not so much that they render docile those who are liable to transgress the law, but that they tend to assimilate the transgression of the laws in a general tactics of subjection. Penality would then appear to be a way of handling illegalities, of laying down the limits of tolerance, of giving free rein to some, of putting pressure on others, of excluding a particular section, of making another useful, of neutralizing certain individuals and of profiting from others. In short, penality does not simply ‘check’ illegalities; it ‘differentiates’ them, it provides them with a general ‘economy’. And, if one can speak of justice, it is not only because the law itself or the way of applying it serves the interests of a class, it is also because the differential administration of illegalities through the mediation of penality forms part of those mechanisms of domination. Legal punishments are to be resituated in an overall strategy of illegalities. The ‘failure’ of the prison may be understood on this basis.

Service is an intangible set of benefits, created by a series of activities. Over the last decade in the IT industry, the distinction between “products” and “services” is blurred, as products are positioned as services, and services are packaged as products. To blur the distinction between products and services is more of a marketing strategy and does not constitute real differentiation. Not only will the sales and pricing strategy between products and services greatly differ, but so will the management approach. Solution is not service, either.

Humans start out, much like other primates, relying on a massively parallel system of cognition, made up of a set of domain-specific heuristics that have evolved as a way of addressing particular problems that presented themselves with some frequency in the environment of evolutionary adaptation. All primates engage in social learning (whereby, instead of engaging in trial-and-error learning, they look to the behavior of conspecifics for clues as to the best strategy). Humans, however, hit on a particular heuristic-imitation with a conformist bias-that has significant adaptive value. In particular, the fidelity of the copying strategy is sufficiently great that it enables cumulative cultural change, and thus creates a cultural inheritance system.28 It also creates the preconditions for genuine rule-following to emerge, and hence for the development of norms-implicit-in-practice. This creates the possibility of semantic intentionality, and propositionally differentiated language (whereby the meaning of propositions becomes independent of their immediate context of use). Thus language develops, initially, as an external social practice. However, the enhancement of our cognitive abilities associated with this "language upgrade" leads individuals to increased dependence on language as a tool for planning and controlling their own behavior. Thus the intentional planning system develops as the seat of conscious, rational action. Theories of rational action (such as decision theory) are not psychological theories that attempt to model underlying "springs of action." They are essentially expressive theories, which attempt to work out the normative commitments that are implicitly undertaken whenever we act on the basis of our beliefs and preferences. Thus they are part of the toolkit that is provided to us by the language upgrade.

but with complementary skills and know-how for the core team (absolutely the founders) make certain to climb the ladder on the appropriate wall as you’re starting out—that is, identifying and targeting the right growing market add lots of value to your clients/customers through your product and services differentiate clearly what you do in comparison to your competitors, all the while remembering whom you and your team serve keep innovating Furthermore, if you are entrepreneurial, you need to craft and implement a strong marketing and distribution strategy, be a

In setting Strategy, follow the definition from the great business strategist Gary Hamel. You don’t have a real strategy if it doesn’t pass two tests: First, what you’re planning to do really matters to enough customers; and second, it differentiates you from your competition.

Never Put These Ten Words in Your Pitch Deck Take a close look at your standard pitch deck, the “about us” section on your corporate home page, or your PR material. Highlight every instance of the words “leading,” “unique,” “solution,” or “innovative.” In particular, go find all instances of the phrase “We work to understand our customers’ unique needs and then build custom solutions to meet those needs.” Then hit the delete key. Because every time you use one of those buzzwords, you are telling your customers, “We are exactly the same as everyone else.” Ironically, the more we try to play up our differences, the more things sound the same. Public relations expert Adam Sherk recently analyzed the terms used in company communications, and the results are devastating. Here are the top ten: By definition, there can be only one leader in any industry—and 161,000 companies each think they’re it. More than 75,000 companies think they’re the “best” or the “top”; 30,400 think they’re “unique.” “Solution” also makes an appearance at number seven—so if you think that calling your offering a “solution” differentiates you, think again. If everyone’s saying they offer the “leading solution,” what’s the customer to think? We can tell you what their response will be: “Great—give me 10 percent off.” We don’t mean to be unsympathetic here. You’ll find it’s hard to avoid these terms—heck, we call our own consulting arm “SEC Solutions”! In all of our time at the Council, we have never once met a member who doesn’t think her company’s value proposition beats the socks off the competitors’. And it’s understandable. After all, why would we want to work for a company whose product is second-rate—especially when our job is to sell that product? But what the utter sameness of language here tells us is that, ironically, a strategy of more precisely describing our products’ advantages over the competition’s is destined to have the exact opposite effect—we simply end up sounding like everyone else.

You don’t have a real strategy if it doesn’t pass two tests: First, what you’re planning to do really matters to enough customers; and second, it differentiates you from your competition.

It becomes a question of 'How do we convey our differentiation instantaneously?' and drive a wedge between any apparent (or assumed) sameness in the marketplace.

Your brand exists to differentiate. “Same crap, different day” won’t do it. A day that goes by without breaking some sacred branding rule is a day a brand has lost to rise above the status quo. By breaking those rules with insight, intelligent and innovation, your brand can get heard in a world that’s simply too busy to listen.

try to soften the differentiator. You might ask, “How do you measure machine speed? Do you mean speed for continuous run, or speed for a one-off job? Some machines are very fast under continuous run conditions, but they perform much more slowly if you have one-off production needs.

The toddler who has experienced healthy symbiosis with a previous caregiver and has moved into differentiation (recognizing himself as a separate being) needs to transfer the trust or bond to the new caregiver(s). If he is in the early stage of differentiation, he will probably experience intense separation anxiety. It is thus extremely important that the transition strategies discussed in Chapter 4 be implemented if at all possible to ease the transfer. The previous caregiver must give the child permission to transfer his trust and love. It is important to allow the expected and entirely normal grief process to occur and support it without abandoning the child to his grief.

People want to hang on to things that work—stories that work, methods that work, strategies that work. You figure something out, it works, so you keep doing it—this is what an organization that is committed to learning does. And as we become successful, our approaches are reinforced, and we become even more resistant to change. Moreover, it is precisely because of the inevitability of change that people fight to hold on to what they know. Unfortunately, we often have little ability to distinguish between what works and is worth hanging on to and what is holding us back and worth discarding. If you polled the employees of any creative company, my guess is that the vast majority would say they believe in change. But my experience, postmerger, taught me something else: Fear of change—innate, stubborn, and resistant to reason—is a powerful force. In many ways, it reminded me of Musical Chairs: We cling as long as possible to the perceived “safe” place that we already know, refusing to loosen our grip until we feel sure another safe place awaits. In a company like Pixar, each individual’s processes are deeply interconnected with those of other people, and it is nearly impossible to get everyone to change in the same way, at the same pace, all at once. Frequently, trying to force simultaneous change just doesn’t seem worth it. How, as managers, do we differentiate between sticking with the tried-and-true and reaching for some unknown that might—or might not—be better? Here’s what we all know, deep down, even though we might wish it weren’t true: Change is going to happen, whether we like it or not. Some people see random, unforeseen events as something to fear. I am not one of those people. To my mind, randomness is not just inevitable; it is part of the beauty of life. Acknowledging it and appreciating it helps us respond constructively when we are surprised. Fear makes people reach for certainty and stability, neither of which guarantee the safety they imply. I take a different approach. Rather than fear randomness, I believe we can make choices to see it for what it is and to let it work for us. The unpredictable is the ground on which creativity occurs.

If your business model is unknown – that is, just a set of untested hypotheses — you are a startup searching for a repeatable business model. Once your business model (market, customers, features, channels, pricing, Get/Keep/Grow strategy, etc.) is known, you will be executing it. Search versus execution is what differentiates a new venture from an existing business unit.

DIs with high Level of Commitment scores, but low Level of Influence scores, create sales mirages that fool salespeople into believing their deals are stronger than they actually are.

It should be a punishable sales crime when an account is lost to a competitor who sold your client the same solution you could have offered, but never did.

Mistakes give you the opportunity to shine.

What I was planning to cover during our meeting is A, B, and C. For this to be a great use of your time, what is it you want to be sure we talk about?

For each slide, develop questions to create DI engagement. This will prevent you from lecturing throughout the entire meeting.

Sex differences are also apparent at the level of narrower ability facets. For instance, women outperform men in memory for object location -likely as a result of selection for gathering skills- and tend to use different strategies for spatial navigation and wayfinding. Another major axis of sexual differentiation is that of mechanistic versus mentalistic cognition. In general, females perform better in mentalistic tasks as decoding nonverbal behavior, interpreting emotional expressions, and attributing beliefs and other states of mind. This advantage in mentalizing -especially in one-to-one and small-group interactions- is likely due to the higher demands posed by the complexity of female competition, and women's primary role in caregiving.

could you configure your capabilities to enable your company to meet the needs of customers in a distinctively valuable way, underpinning a potential differentiation strategy? Or, at a minimum, could you configure your capabilities to enable the company to match competitors in meeting the needs of customers, underpinning a potential cost-leadership strategy? In other words, how could your capabilities be configured to translate to a measurable, sustainable competitive advantage?

After customers, the lens turns inward: what are your capabilities and costs relative to the competition? Can you be a differentiator or a cost leader?

Ultimately, all differences between companies in cost or price derive from the hundreds of activities required to create, produce, sell, and deliver their products or services, such as calling on customers, assembling final products, and training employees. Cost is generated by performing activities, and cost advantage arises from performing particular activities more efficiently than competitors. Similarly, differentiation arises from both the choice of activities and how they are performed. Activities, then, are the basic units of competitive advantage. Overall advantage or disadvantage results from all a company’s activities, not only a few.1

Purpose is where performance differences start. Nothing else is more important to the survival and success of a firm than why it exists, and what otherwise unmet needs it intends to fill. It is the first and most important question a strategist must answer. Every concept of strategy that has entered the conversation of business managers—sustainable competitive advantage, positioning, differentiation, added value, even the firm effect—flows from purpose. EFFECTIVE

I’ve seen many small businesses completely misunderstand their marketplace because they didn’t want to believe that their products or services were missing the mark, or they didn’t want to make the necessary investments for course corrections, or they simply didn’t offer the innovation or differentiation that they thought they did.

Your customer is the person whose life you promise to impact through mission delivery.

Don’t let a disdain for competition lull you into thinking that you aren’t battling for heart, mind, and market share. You compete with players you’ve never met and don’t know anything about.

or surprise illnesses. Yes, there is competition for this product from less complete datasets, but market share will grow as more people become aware of it. An initial PR push might help to get the ball rolling on links that will help search visibility, but eventually, there will be branded search, too, as users look for this most complete dataset. Non-branded queries will consist of all illnesses combined with a cost or price keyword. As the product grows, there could be iterations that incorporate more things beyond price, but at least from the outset, you have validated that there’s lots of demand. Zooming in on this product, there are many aspects that make it an ideal Product-Led SEO strategy. It is programmatic and scalable, creates something new, and addresses untapped search demand. Additionally, and most importantly, there is a direct path to a paying telehealth user. Users can access the data without being a current customer, but the cost differential between telehealth (when appropriate) versus in-person will lead some users down a discovery journey that ends with a conversion. A user who might never have considered telehealth might be drawn to the cost savings in reduced transportation and waiting times that they would never have known about had they not seen your content. Making a Decision Now, as the telehealth executive, you have two competing product ideas to choose from. While you can eventually do both, you can only do one at a time, as I suggested earlier. You will take both of these product ideas and spec out all the requirements. The conditions library might require buying a medical repository and licensing many stock photos, while the cost directory is built on open-source datasets.

Both industrial customers and consumers tend to be more price sensitive when what they’re buying is Undifferentiated Expensive relative to their other costs or income Inconsequential to their own performance A counterexample that includes all three of these conditions is the price insensitivity of makers of major motion pictures when they buy or rent production equipment. A movie camera, for example, is a highly differentiated piece of equipment. Its price is small relative to the other costs of production, but the performance of the equipment has a big impact on the success of the movie. Here quality trumps price.

Both suppliers and buyers tend to be powerful if: They are large and concentrated relative to a fragmented industry (think Goliath versus many Davids). What percentage of an industry’s purchases/sales does a supplier/buyer represent? Look at the data and map out how it is trending. How painful would it be to lose that supplier or that customer? Industries with high fixed costs (e.g., telecommunications equipment and offshore drilling) are especially vulnerable to large buyers. The industry needs them more than they need the industry. In some cases, there may be no alternative suppliers, at least in the short term. Doctors and airline pilots, to cite two examples, have historically exercised tremendous bargaining power because their skills have been both essential and in short supply. China produces 95 percent of the world’s supply of neodymium, a rare earth metal needed by Toyota and other automakers for electric motors. Neodymium prices quadrupled in just one year (2010), as the Chinese restricted supply. Toyota is working hard to develop a new motor that will end its dependence on rare earth metals. Switching costs work in their favor. This occurs for a supplier when an industry is tied to it, as for example, the PC industry has been to Microsoft, its dominant supplier of operating systems and software. Switching costs work in the buyer’s favor when the buyer can easily drop one vendor for another. The ease with which customers can switch from one airline to another on popular routes makes it hard for airlines to raise prices or cut service levels. Frequent flyer programs were intended to raise switching costs, but they have not been effective. Differentiation works in their favor.

Power: the set of conditions creating the potential for persistent differential returns Power is the core concept of Strategy and of this book, too. It is the Holy Grail of business—notoriously difficult to reach, but well worth your attention and study.

Watch what they do, not what they say Watching what your customers are doing—or trying to do—with your product can light the way forward. But you have to be careful to pay attention to what they do and not just what they say. Expect to have your theories of human behavior tested Your theory about how individuals and groups behave should underlie your strategy, your product design, your incentive program—every decision you make. But be open and alert to when your customers show you a different theory or direction. That could become your product’s point of differentiation. Follow the leaders: Your customers To grow your business, you may have to give up control. Look for instances when your customers hack or hijack your product, and then go along for the ride. Get Mr. Spock and Dr. McCoy working together Customer data is your Mr. Spock, detached and logical. Customer emotion is your Dr. McCoy, passionate and all too human. Think of yourself as Captain Kirk, responsible for making the two work together to get the best out of each.

The better the products, services and experiences a company is able to offer its customers, the more it can drive demand for those products, services and experiences. And there is no better way to compete in a market economy than by creating more demand and having greater control over the supply—which all boils down to the will of those who work for us. Better products, services and experiences are usually the result of the employees who invented, innovated or supplied them. As soon as people are put second on the priority list, differentiation gives way to commoditization. And when that happens, innovation declines and the pressure to compete on things like price, and other short-term strategies, goes up.

Countersignaling You would think, based on the previous section, that if you have the ability to signal your type, you should. That way, you differentiate yourself from those who can’t make the same signal. And yet, some of the people most able to signal refrain from doing so. As Feltovich, Harbaugh, and To explain: The nouveau riche flaunt their wealth, but the old rich scorn such gauche displays. Minor officials prove their status with petty displays of authority, while the truly powerful show their strength through gestures of magnanimity. People of average education show off the studied regularity of their script, but the well educated often scribble illegibly. Mediocre students answer a teacher’s easy questions, but the best students are embarrassed to prove their knowledge of trivial points. Acquaintances show their good intentions by politely ignoring one’s flaws, while close friends show intimacy by teasingly highlighting them. People of moderate ability seek formal credentials to impress employers and society, but the talented often downplay their credentials even if they have bothered to obtain them. A person of average reputation defensively refutes accusations against his character, while a highly respected person finds it demeaning to dignify accusations with a response.6 Their insight is that in some circumstances, the best way to signal your ability or type is by not signaling at all, by refusing to play the signaling game.

Effective branding strategies differentiate a school from its competitors, fostering loyalty among existing students, staff, and parents while attracting new ones.

Principle: The more we are able to differentiate between our strategies and needs, the more clarity and choice we have.

By applying the four actions of eliminating, reducing, raising, and creating, they differentiate their profiles from the industry’s average profile.

The ability to command a higher price is the essence of differentiation, a term Porter uses in this somewhat idiosyncratic way. Most people hear the word and immediately think “different,” but they might apply that difference to cost as well as to price. For example, “Ryanair’s low costs differentiate it from other airlines.” Marketers have their own definition of differentiation: it’s the process of establishing in customers’ minds how one product differs from others. Two brands of yogurt may sell for the same price, but you’re told that Brand A has “50 percent fewer calories.” Porter is after something different. He is focused on tracking down the root causes of superior profitability. He is also trying to encourage more precise and rigorous thinking by underscoring the distinction between price effects and cost effects. For Porter, then, differentiation refers to the ability to charge a higher relative price.

Years back, when I was first learning about Marshall Rosenberg’s work, I attended a workshop where we learned to differentiate between needs and strategies. At the time, I was having a lot of conflict with a family member, and I asked the facilitator for help in understanding what this person’s needs might be when we get into arguments. “It seems to me that they feel a need to be right,” I said. “But everyone can’t be right,” the instructor explained. “Being right is a strategy . . . what might the need be?” After thinking more, I saw that maybe being right was this person’s way of feeling important, knowing that they matter, or feeling capable. Immediately, I felt more compassion toward them because I understood those needs. I have them, too. That experience was a powerful one for healing my family relationship, and I have seen similar changes happen when people use this way of thinking to understand and resolve financial conflicts.

Business Plan Writers If you need a business plan in less than a week, our consulting service can help! Our business plan consultants will create a business strategy that will impress your investors. We looked at all the best business plan writing services and compared their features and pricing. Here is our in depth comparison and recommendations. A business plan writing service is a team of business experts that take your ideas & numbers, combine it with some of their own research and produce a professional, well-formatted business plan. We looked at the 3 top business plan writing services and compared their features and pricing. From start-up guidance to operations consulting, your company can become more successful with the support of one of our business consultants. First, let our team learn more about your business and listen to your needs. Then, we’ll identify key areas of opportunity, and help you to implement the right business plan and strategy for the growth of your company. It was a good startup. It had a good idea and, much more important, a market window, differentiation and experience to make it happen. One of my first engagements in business planning was as business plan consultant to a startup with three experienced founders. I met with them several times, listened always, and did their business plan. I built the financial model, wrote the text, and produced the document as a business plan document. But I wasn’t part of the team.

A distribution strategy can differentiate your product from the crowd.

Lyotard addresses... in Postmodern Fables... [that] ideas of difference, alterity and multiculturalism have become nothing more than streams of cultural capital, streams which themselves fashion, and are fashioned by, the demands of the global market. Hence, the following irony: 'What cultural capitalism has found is the marketplace of singularities'. The result of this discovery, which even reduces the 'postmodern' celebration of difference or otherness to a marketable strategy, is that ideas are stripped of their intrinsic value (value-rationality) and are judged by their value as commodities. This leads to the production of thought that is itself devoid of difference, for streams of cultural capital 'must all go in the right direction' and 'must converge'. Global capitalism, while appearing to affirm the potentiality of cultural differentiation, in fact subordinates difference and alterity to an instrumental logic of exchange, performance and control.

You can shift the odds in your favor by differentiating yourself from others, because a good strategy seeks uniqueness. Rather than a plan, a strategy is a framework for decision making. It is an original choice about direction, which enables subsequent choices about action. It prepares the organization to make those choices. Without a strategy, the actions taken by an organization degenerate into arbitrary sets of activity. A strategy enables people to reflect on the activity and gives them a rationale for deciding what to do next. A robust strategy is not dependent on competitors doing any single thing. It does not seek to control an independent will. Instead, it should be a “system of expedients” – with the emphasis on system.

Differentiation in an existing market can take one of three forms. You can describe differences in product attributes (faster, cheaper, less filling, 30% more), in distribution channel (pizza in 30 minutes, home delivery, see your nearest dealer, build it yourself on the Web), or in service (five-year, 50,000-mile warranty; 90-day money-back guarantee; lifetime warranty).

Differentiating Yourself  Pursuing a differentiation strategy has merit over pursuing a low-cost strategy. Focusing and sharpening your strengths is a major step in developing competitive advantage—the thing that you can do better than anyone else.  The first step is to take stock of your resources and capabilities and assess whether they match your intentions. Do you have what is called “strategic fit”? Aligning your resources and capabilities with your intentions puts you in the best position for crafting and executing a successful strategy.  To help you achieve this, develop a personal USP, a one-sentence description of what you offer people that few others can match. Now do the same for a trusted friend and exchange the results. This is sometimes the best way of taking your personal skills inventory.

Many job seekers unwittingly choose the low-cost strategy when they should be pursuing a differentiation strategy. Instead of doing the hard work of differentiating themselves, they choose the easy path of low cost, effectively advertising themselves as commodities.

To be truly strategic, CIOs need to think about how value is created. Many are good at cost cutting, but this is almost by definition a backward looking exercise—optimizing something that is already in place. This is not strategic. CIOs need to think about what future possibilities there are to leverage technology for new value and top-line growth. This is what differentiates the strategic CIO.11

To produce a high-performing and sustainable blue ocean strategy, you need to ask the following questions. Are your three strategy propositions aligned in pursuit of differentiation and low cost? Have you identified all the key stakeholders, including external ones on which the effective execution of your blue ocean strategy will depend? Have you developed compelling people propositions for each of these to ensure they are motivated and behind the execution of your new idea?

As challenging as it can be from businesses to relationships to anything else, if we ground ourselves in the respect to hear the other side, differentiate our opinion from proven and vetted facts, while remove the insulting and attacking elements, we can create impactful conversations of change.

Good management practices and operational effectiveness help create meaningful differentiation between companies. They are hard to achieve, diffuse slowly, and can serve as the basis of a long-term competitive advantage.

If, in days gone by, it was sound strategy to accumulate the effects of alienation, today it is safer to stockpile the effects of indifference. To create a pole of indifference so that powerful processes of attraction or repulsion are produced all around. To create a gulf which will swallow up inverse energies at differential speeds, on the extraordinary lines of Edgar Allan Poe’s maelstrom. Or, yet again, to become nothing but a ghostly hologram, a laser outline—so that it may then be all the easier to disappear without being noticed, leaving others prey to reality. Dying is nothing, you have to know how to disappear.

The engine is never your salary; the engine is the employer's pressing business needs. The next car back has your responsibilities that will address the company's needs and goals. The next car back is filled with your differentiators that address the employer's pressing business needs. The next car back might be a bet on how your unique capabilities will address the company's needs and the performance that you will achieve. The next car back is filled with other differentiators and additional Storytelling Issues. The caboose is your salary and annual bonus. The caboose is always attached to the train and rides along, but it comes at the end of the discussion, not the beginning of the conversation.

If no forces interfere with the process of entry by competitors, profitability will be driven to levels at which efficient firms earn no more than a “normal” return on their invested capital. It is barriers to entry, not differentiation by itself, that creates strategic opportunities.

Because retail brands are barely differentiated, they are relatively fragile when compared to the largest manufacturer brands, despite having, in general, much higher awareness levels. Thus, there is much more fluidity in retail branding, with old names being quick to disappear once a better/stronger player muscles in. Retailers hope that, as they develop multi-format strategies and are now the largest advertising spenders, their brands will develop a greater permanence.

For value-based initiatives to take hold and succeed over the long term, their sponsors need to dispel the myths, explain the benefits, and create excitement. These transformations are just like any other journey in life. If you want someone to join you on a trip, you show them snapshots and videos that bring the scenery and the attractions to life. You don’t blind them with science, make PowerPoints, or read them pages from an encyclopedia. VBP is much more than a pricing strategy, and it needs to be looked at as part of a holistic value transformation.

You need a “strange” culture and a “strange” strategy to differentiate your firm in the marketplace.

These autonomous, self-regulating properties of holons within the growing embryo are a vital safeguard; they ensure that whatever accidental hazards arise during development, the end-product will be according to norm. In view of the millions and millions of cells which divide, differentiate, and move about in the constantly changing environment of fluids and neighbouring tissues-Waddington called it 'the epigenetic landscape'-it must be assumed that no two embryos, not even identical twins, are formed in exactly the same way. The self-regulating mechanisms which correct deviations from the norm and guarantee, so to speak, the end-result, have been compared to the homeostatic feedback devices in the adult organism-so biologists speak of 'developmental homeostasis'. The future individual is potentially predetermined in the chromosomes of the fertilised egg; but to translate this blueprint into the finished product, billions of specialized cells have to be fabricated and moulded into an integrated structure. The mind boggles at the idea that the genes of that one fertilised egg should contain built-in provisions for each and every particular contingency which every single one of its fifty-six generations of daughter cells might encounter in the process. However, the problem becomes a little less baffling if we replace the concept of the 'genetic blueprint', which implies a plan to be rigidly copied, by the concept of a genetic canon of rules which are fixed, but leave room for alternative choices, i.e., flexible strategies guided by feedbacks and pointers from the environment. But how can this formula be applied to the development of the embryo?

It is easy to buy into exciting new strategies that promise to take you into the insanely awesome future. “We’re going to differentiate ourselves by customer experience. Woot! Woot!” It is a downer to make the trade-offs. “We’re moving heads and budgets from the juggernaut divisions of the past to fund the skunkworks and startups of the future.” Ouch, that hurts.

The best way to achieve alignment is to sequentially move through a series of structured discussions that clarify the organization’s strategy, defining precisely what differentiating capabilities are required, then to examine all the systems of choices that develop that capability: work processes; structure and governance; information and metrics; people and rewards; continuous improvement; and culture and leadership (fig. 1.5). These are the conversations entailed in organization alignment. They can—and should—be quick and to the point. But these critical conversations should not be skipped.

When strategy is adjusted, leadership teams must scrutinize the work of the organization and discern what new or existing activities and touch points will actually deliver differentiation in the marketplace. Not what activities are familiar old friends that have previously contributed to success. Not what activities are headed by the most charismatic or brilliant people in your company. Not what activities are considered "best in class.” Not what activities are prescribed by the myriad of institutions that inform the education and professional certification of technical experts you have hired. Not what activities are legislated. Just those activities that will help you win because they set you apart from everyone else.

To grow and create profits, you need to differentiate based on market needs and your competitive strengths. The entry wedge can take many forms and can include new technologies (Medtronic), new business models (Dell), new locations (Walmart), or better leadership (Jobs, Bezos). The first step is to know where your venture can get an edge over your competitors and then develop marketing, operations, management, and resource strategies that are consistent with that edge.

At the same time, by eliminating many of the most costly elements of the circus, it dramatically reduced its cost structure, achieving both differentiation and low cost. Cirque strategically priced its tickets against those of the theater, lifting the price point of the circus industry by several multiples while still pricing its productions to capture the mass of adult customers, who were used to theater prices.

Tapes Manufacturing reliably places assets into age adapt, especially proposed for covering exceptional weight tricky pastes. Our paste covering lines have precision controls estimation contraptions that attestation immovable paste film thickness is adequately versatile to process a wide strategy of motion pictures, destructions and papers. Paste covering is done with either turn roll or gravure covering heads, subordinate upon the paste outline, coat weight and application. These covering heads are planned to adequately process film thicknesses from .25 mil to 10 mils, covering weights from .5 mils to 5 mils and web widths up to 60 inches. Tapes Manufacturing Multi-zone drying stoves update the execution attributes of their weight fragile paste tapes. Other in-line shapes join getting ready, release covering, crown treatment and overlay of right hand substrates. Moreover, our offers specific changing over process in rewind slitting, machine slitting, bomb pitiably cutting, logging and overlaying. Tapes Manufacturing Amazing devices things, for instance, against static tapes, give static dissipative properties to electrical setting up, and additionally high-temperature surface affirmation. Surface insistence tapes are by and large used for security on adaptable electronic devices to foresee surface dirtying and scratches. Polyimide or Kapton single tied down and twofold secured tapes are used for high temperature holding and get together. Differential paste, twofold tied down tapes are secured with a silicone stick on side one and an acrylic concrete on side two; their fantastic properties everlastingly bond materials, for instance, silicone key pads to PDAs. Despite whether it's pilot foundations, new thing scale-up or high-volume creation, our wide bond covering and changing over prevalence ensures diligent, dumbfounding things that meet customers' requirements.

Organizational leaders often accept and act on two fundamental assumptions. One is that market boundaries and industry conditions are given. You cannot change them. You have to build your strategy based on them. 4 The other is that, to succeed within these environmental constraints, an organization must make a strategic choice between differentiation and low cost. Either it can deliver greater value to customers at a greater cost and hence a higher price, or it can deliver reasonable value at a lower cost. But it can’t do both. Hence, the essence of strategy is seen as making a value-cost trade-off.

On defense, blitzscaling lets you set a pace that keeps your competitors gasping simply to keep up, affording them little time and space to counterattack. Because they’re focused on responding to your moves, which can often take them by surprise and force them to play catch-up, they don’t have as much time available to develop and execute differentiated strategies that might threaten your position. Blitzscaling helps you determine the playing field to your great advantage.

Purpose is where performance differences start. Nothing else is more important to the survival and success of a firm than why it exists, and what otherwise unmet needs it intends to fill. It is the first and most important question a strategist must answer. Every concept of strategy that has entered the conversation of business managers—sustainable competitive advantage, positioning, differentiation, added value, even the firm effect—flows from purpose.

Priority Metrics Group13 states that there are six ways to differentiate your business. Have a look at the diagram below. So how can you apply this to online businesses like yours and mine—particularly personal brands or those wanting to build an expert business (a business based around sharing your expertise)?

Once you pick a point of differentiation, ask yourself the following: Is it relevant to your readers?

Your point of differentiation will constantly evolve because the market is not stagnant.

Your differentiation strategy may need to change with time so always analyze the space and see that your differentiation strategy still holds true.

Productivity is a complex subject comprising many facets including time management, prioritization, discipline, learning to differentiate the important/urgent from the less important/less urgent, the art of delegation, the skill of multitasking and so on and so forth.

Looking for fears, indeed, may be a more fruitful research strategy than a literal-minded quest for thinkers who “created” fascism. One such fear was the collapse of community under the corrosive influences of free individualism. Rousseau had already worried about this before the French Revolution. In the mid-nineteenth century and after, the fear of social disintegration was mostly a conservative concern. After the turbulent 1840s in England, the Victorian polemicist Thomas Carlyle worried about what force would discipline “the masses, full of beer and nonsense,” as more and more of them received the right to vote. Carlyle’s remedy was a militarized welfare dictatorship, administered not by the existing ruling class but by a new elite composed of selfless captains of industry and other natural heroes of the order of Oliver Cromwell and Frederick the Great. The Nazis later claimed Carlyle as a forerunner. Fear of the collapse of community solidarity intensified in Europe toward the end of the nineteenth century, under the impact of urban sprawl, industrial conflict, and immigration. Diagnosing the ills of community was a central project in the creation of the new discipline of sociology. Émile Durkheim (1858–1917), the first French holder of a chair in sociology, diagnosed modern society as afflicted with “anomie”—the purposeless drift of people without social ties—and reflected on the replacement of “organic” solidarity, the ties formed within natural communities of villages, families, and churches, with “mechanical” solidarity, the ties formed by modern propaganda and media such as fascists (and advertisers) would later perfect. The German sociologist Ferdinand Tönnies regretted the supplanting of traditional, natural societies (Gemeinschaften) by more differentiated and impersonal modern societies (Gesellschaften) in Gemeinschaft und Gesellschaft (1887), and the Nazis borrowed his term for the “people’s community” (Volksgemeinschaft) they wanted to form. The early twentieth-century sociologists Vilfredo Pareto, Gaetano Mosca, and Roberto Michels contributed more directly to fascist ideas.

Ramakrishna Paramhans Ward, PO mangal nagar, Katni, [M.P.] 2nd Floor, Above KBZ Pay Centre, between 65 & 66 street, Manawhari Road Mandalay, Myanmar Phone +95 9972107002 Market research plays a pivotal role in shaping business strategies and facilitating growth in dynamic markets like Myanmar. As businesses navigate through the complexities of the Myanmar market landscape, the expertise and insights provided by market research agencies become invaluable. One such prominent player in the field is AMT Market Research Agency, known for its comprehensive approach and tailored solutions. This article delves into the significance of market research for businesses in Myanmar, explores the services offered by AMT, showcases success stories, analyzes emerging trends in the industry, and presents client testimonials, providing a holistic view of the market research agency in Myanmar # 1. Introduction to Market Research in Myanmar ## Understanding the Market Landscape Market research in Myanmar is like exploring a hidden gem - full of potential but requiring a keen eye to uncover the treasures within. As one of the fastest-growing economies in Southeast Asia, Myanmar presents a unique blend of traditional values and modern aspirations that make it a fascinating market to study. ## Challenges and Opportunities in Myanmar Navigating the market in Myanmar can be akin to a thrilling adventure, with challenges and opportunities around every corner. From infrastructural limitations to cultural nuances, businesses face hurdles that require insightful market research to overcome. However, with the right approach, the untapped potential of Myanmar's market can lead to significant growth and success. # 2. Overview of AMT Market Research Agency ## Background and History of AMT AMT Market Research Agency is not your average player in the market research scene. With a rich history rooted in a passion for uncovering insights and a commitment to excellence, AMT has established itself as a trusted partner for businesses looking to navigate Myanmar's complex market landscape. ## Key Differentiators of AMT What sets AMT apart from the rest of the pack? It's not just their cutting-edge methodologies or their team of expert researchers, but their genuine enthusiasm for understanding the intricacies of the Myanmar market. AMT doesn't just deliver data - they offer valuable insights that drive strategic decision-making. # 3. Importance of Market Research for Businesses in Myanmar ## Driving Informed Decision-Making In a market as dynamic as Myanmar, making informed decisions is crucial for business success. Market research provides the necessary data and insights that empower businesses to make strategic choices with confidence. With AMT by your side, you can trust that your decisions are backed by solid research and analysis. ## Mitigating Risks in a Dynamic Market The only constant in the Myanmar market is change. With shifting consumer behaviors, regulatory landscapes, and competitive pressures, businesses face a myriad of risks. Market research acts as a compass, guiding businesses through the uncertainties and helping them navigate the market with clarity and foresight. # 4. Services Offered by AMT Market Research Agency ## Quantitative Research Solutions Numbers don't lie, and neither does quantitative research. AMT offers a range of quantitative research solutions that provide businesses with statistically sound data to make informed decisions. From surveys to data analysis, AMT ensures that your business is equipped with the numbers it needs to succeed. ## Qualitative Research Approaches Sometimes, it's not just about the numbers - it's about understanding the why behind the what. Qualitative research approaches offered by AMT delve deep into consumer insights, behaviors, and motivations, providing businesses with a rich understanding of the market landscape.