Who is your competition and where are they?

I have two very seemingly simple questions that I have titled this post with: Who is your competition and where are they?

Seems like there should be an obvious answer. For many of us, there is an obvious answer, but is it a complete answer?

Let’s take a look and see where we end up.

Every customer I have is competing to be better than their industry rivals. Really, many of the companies I have worked for prior to 8 Penny Labs had a focus on their industry rivals and what they were doing, or not, to serve the market that they shared.

My question: Is knowing what your rivals are doing the most effective question that needs to be answered?

It certainly is the obvious question.  And, I would say, it is very likely relevant - but, when you find out what they are doing, is that all you need to know to truly be competitive?  I don't think so.  Not that our industry rivals aren’t part of that competitive landscape, but they aren’t the sum total of it either.

So, if knowing what your rivals are doing isn’t a complete answer, what else do we need to consider?  Who else is competitively relevant? 

While preparing for this post, I came across the following quote:  

“The last best experience anyone has anywhere becomes the minimum expectation for the experience they want everywhere”

This quote is attributed to Bridget van Kranlingen. At the time, Ms. van Kranlingen was a senior executive at IBM. She is now a partner in a PE firm…if that matters to you. Her quote is instructive because it points us in a very different and diverse direction when attempting to answer the question that I have posted above. In fact, for many businesses, if you really think about what this means (if she is right...and I think she is), it is a very unsettling answer.

The way I speak about this very topic with customers and prospects focuses on Amazon. I use them because they are ubiquitous - they are everywhere and everyone has experienced them in some way. The way I say it is: “Every time you order something on Amazon and have it delivered on the same day, your expectations for how you transact with anyone for anything has forever changed.” I have spoken these words, or similar ones in every sales conversation and with every customer I have.

Interestingly, every single customer I have has an Amazon account and can order almost anything they want from that account and have it delivered - none of them, on their own, include Amazon as their competition. They don’t see it that way…until they do.

The truth is, everyone is competing on customer experience - even if they aren’t actively “competing”. Opting out of the competition is allowed, but is uncompetitive - by definition. 

It doesn’t matter what anyone thinks is happening, their market is being constantly informed by the global market for everything/anything.  The marketplace is what determines what a good or bad customer experience is, not us. Customers naturally move toward the good and away from the bad - we all do it.

Local competition exists, and solely focusing in that direction is no longer good enough to be competitive. Said differently:  good enough is no longer good enough - all businesses are now subjected to the hyper innovation cycles of the large global providers of everything.

Now what?

Next week we will take a look at how your competitive landscape has changed and offer some guidance for how to think about those changes and what to do about them.

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