A few brief thoughts about competition in business.

1. SS
Ten Slides in Ten Minutes:
Thinking about Competition in Business
[Capturing the Hearts and Minds of Prospects & Clients]
Presented by:
Bill Graham APM.APMP
bill.graham@sales-synthesis.co.za
October, 2013

2. Agenda
• The Sustainable Business Imperative
• A Relevant Business Acquisition Process is Essential
• A Journey Needs to be Developed with/for the Client
• It is a Necessity to Deploy Relevant Cost-Efficient Solutions
• The Red Queen Hypothesis - as Related to Competitors
• Learn from other’s mistakes…
• Client’s Define Value & Build the Barriers to Entry for your Competitors
2

3. The Sustainable Business Imperative
Making the competitors irrelevant
Absent
Emerging
Pervasive
Dominant
Symbiotic
relationship
with clients
Where you need to
be going
People
Source: Sales Synthesis
3
Performing
Pertinent
Exclusive
Projects
Particular
Places

4. A Relevant Business Acquisition Process is Essential
Market
Management
Industry
Knowledge
Trend
Challenges
Response
Relationship
Building
Impact
Players
Personal
Challenges
Upliftment
Business Acquisition
Source: Sales Synthesis
4
Opportunity
Scouting
Business
Solution/s
Benefits
Derived
value
Symbiotic
relationship
with clients

5. A Journey Needs to be Developed with/for the Client
A Common Strategic
Vision with Clients
An evolving
relationship
Hosted Solutions
Value-Added Services
Basic Solutions
Basic Products
Source: Sales Synthesis
5

6. It is a Necessity to Deploy Relevant Cost-Efficient Solutions
Moment of
Truth
A Common Strategic
Vision with Clients
An evolving
relationship
Competitive
Molehill
Competitive
Mountain
Hosted Solutions
Value-Added Services
Basic Solutions
Basic Products
Source: Sales Synthesis
6
The Competitors’
Trajectory of
Irrelevance

7. The Red Queen Hypothesis - as Related to Competitors
• Taken from the Red Queen's race in Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking-Glass.
• The Red Queen said, "It takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same
place."
• In a Business context:
o For an evolving organisation [as all should be], continuing development is
needed - just to maintain their relevance to the client’s marketplace.
Source: Courtesy of Lewis Carroll & William Hamilton
7

8. Learn from other’s mistakes…
• Nokia’s value proposition – or lack of it !!!
• Blackberry’s failure to innovate
Irrelevant
offerings
• Betamax was bulky, complicated, ugly, expensive,
publicly ridiculed, horribly marketed, disdained by the
media and only capable of limited recording and
playback
Outsmarted
Complacency
• Woolworths' collapse was one of the defining events
of the credit crisis
• Digital Equipment Corp. (DEC) was the world's secondlargest computer company in the late 1980s – now, not
even a memory
“Leadership”
Source: Various
8
Poor
Management
Decisions
Failure to
evolve

9. Client’s Define Value & Build the Barriers to Entry for your Competitors
A value proposition describes why your products and services are the best choice for
your target customers.
Value Proposition
Value Definition
Value Derivation
Customer
X
Validate Solution
Functionality
Realise the Benefits
Vendor
Understand the
Problem & Propose a
Business Solution
Architect the Technical
Solution
X
Moment
of Truth
With robust Account Management: Clients’ assist in
building the barriers to entry for your Competitors
9

10. Closing
With robust Account Management: Clients’ assist in
building the barriers to entry for your Competitors
Business Acquisition
Process
A Journey needs to
be developed
Learn from other’s
mistakes…
Deploy Relevant
Cost-Efficient
Solutions
However, there is, without doubt, one common area from which
organisation failure emanates… Leadership…
10