Understanding your competition-Part 2

In my first post on this topic, a few days back, I wrote about how you need to understand the competition.

The big challenge with competition, in the technology industry is that, in a lot of cases you don’t recognize where the disruption can come from.

In addition you can’t envisage all the ways your customers’ business is getting impacted. Based on the impact in their environment they may take decisions which can impact you.

I have had many situations over the years where we did not anticipate the customer’s business environment change, whether it was related to government policy or the change with people moving from Capex to Opex. In all these situations the customer’s demands suddenly changed and we had to rethink our strategy, delivery mechanisms etc. Trust me, its not a good position to be in.

The key advantage of doing business in B2B is that if you do a decent job, then you stay with the customer a long long time. There are very few impulsive decisions taken until you really mess up.

On the other hand you need to be aware of how the environment has changed over the last few years for the customer, so that you are not caught unaware.

This is competition for you because now you need to rethink your pricing , your technology and your delivery mechanism. Your customer expects you to provide a solution to fit their new circumstances or they will go somewhere else. And there’s no name to this competition so it’s more dangerous.

Till next time then….keep an eye for competition from different avenues.

Carpe Diem!!!

Understanding your competition

B2B, competition, Marketing, Product Management, segmentation, single target market

If you can’t think what your competitors can do you will be someone’s lunch soon.

In my earlier posts I have written about why it’s important to have competition. For one it shows there’s a market. That’s a very critical point.

Second if the competitor has entered the market before you then you can learn from their mistakes. Third it helps you define your niche even better.

But competition is a very dynamic thing. The horse carriage people did not think Automotive would make them a relic.

Especially when you are doing product management in a technology industry you need to look out where the next competition will come from. Generally it never comes from your known competitors.

Did Nokia realize that Apple will totally decimate them. Or for that matter Kodak even though Kodak itself had built the first digital camera.

One of the best ways to understand where you competitors could hurt you is by placing yourself in your competitor’s shoes. Knowing the weaknesses that exist in your existing product or service or technology identify where could some other company come and displace you.

This may not always alert you to the company who could hurt you but it could help identify trends in the market which could go against you.

Which brings me to the other aspect of product management. Be out there in the market, in the store or with a customers, consistently trying to understand why customers are looking at something else instead of buying from you. It’s most often not only about price.

Till next time then….keep watching for your competitors.

Carpe Diem!!!

Identifying the dissonance for engaging a B2B customer

B2B, Business, competition, Marketing, Marketing Stamina, messaging, persistence, segmentation, single target market

With B2B customers, as I have mentioned earlier in my earlier posts, its difficult to get instantaneous decisions because of various reasons. These could vary from inertia to customers having to do cross functional team decisions, budgets and the works.

In most cases until the dissonance with the existing supplier is so large and repeated that the customer can no longer bear it, they don’t change. However in a bundle of 1000 prospects, the Dean Jackson “inevitability principle” eventually kicks in and some incumbents falter and that’s when you get a chance to stake your claim.

Now you need to be in front of the customer to stake your claim. In addition you should, on a consistent basis keep highlighting the possible challenges the customer could be facing.

For this you need to know your competition well. Competition could be from a company or an alternative technology. You need to understand the places competition is weak and then work your messaging to highlight the challenges the customer could be facing because of the those issues. These messages need to be about “rubbing salt over their wound” so that the pain gets even more highlighted.

Its not always possible to know all the challenges until you ask the customer and then hypothesize for others – since you have already focused on a narrow segment of the market. So if you get in front of a customer on the phone or in person or via web you need to check if they value the benefits that you offer versus what the incumbent does not have. You will then realize for yourself if those benefits matter to a decent set of your audience.

Once you have done that then the the key is to be persistent because we don’t know when the customer will decide to change. Also since customers do more than 60% of their research in the sales cycle even before they call the vendors, if you are not in front of them when they are doing the research, you won’t even get considered.

Till next time then.

Carpe Diem!!!

Competition is good – Part II

competition, differentiation, Marketing, Positioning, Product Management, segmentation, value proposition

Yesterday I spoke about why competition is good for you.

Today we will look at what you need to be aware of in your competition.

In the technology space if you’re competing with a big player, you need to first of all be aware that they have a large customer base and they an ecosystem already in place. This could be the software developers, the reseller partners etc.

Due to this you get to know what is the surrounding “infrastructure ” that needs to fall in place, to make your product/service successful.

However going head-on into competition is never a good idea.

Each competitor would also have multiple areas of the market that they neglect because they’re not big enough for them to invest in.

Look at some of those and create segments and value proposition for dominating those before you decide to get into something else. Always get into the niche with an agenda to Dominate.

From a customer perspective also, since customers prefer to avoid taking risks, don’t try to initially target the same type of customers who have made your competitors successful because they will use you to get discounts from the leaders.

Competition is a very good learning experience and gets you prepared to Not do the same mistakes which the competitors have made.

Till next time then.

Carpe Diem!!!