The mapping of your competitive differentiation is the comprehensive and systematic approach to understanding and managing your competitive strengths and weaknesses.
One of the challenges associated with managing your competitive differentiation is the difficulty associated with defining and measuring your strengths and weaknesses. The concept of differentiation is sometimes oversimplified to price leadership, product leadership, or customer relationship leadership. These simple characterizations provide a useful guide but do not represent an effective management tool because the nature of business-to-business brand perceptions and purchase decisions requires vendors to manage a combination of attributes rather than focus on one trait.
A more comprehensive approach is needed in order to make tactical decisions—especially at the product level—and compete against your market rivals. Isurus recommends using a systematic approach to map and manage your competitive differentiation.
Benefits
A comprehensive and systematic approach enables you to:
- Current strengths and weaknesses relative to competitors
- Actions that are likely to result in greatest gains in differentiation
- Opportunities for new areas of differentiation that you can hold and defend
- Opportunities for weakening a competitor’s differentiation
- Attributes that only need to meet a minimum threshold (threshold conditions)
- Differentiation you can never hold (lost causes)
Map your competitive differentiation, which helps communicate to internal stakeholders (such as the sales force, engineering and customer service) why, where and how changes need to be made.
Focus on what your market cares about– your competitive differentiation is defined by your customers and prospects, not by you. Map your competitive differentiation, which helps communicate to internal stakeholders (such as the sales force, engineering and customer service) why, where and how changes need to be made.
Compare product lines and market segments objectively. Target investment and resources where they are likely to make the most difference.
The outcomes of the process include a concise and intuitive visual representation of your competitive differentiation relative to competitors.
Mapping Your Competitive Differentiation
Competitive Differentiation Mapping Process
Step 1: Identify
The marketplace typically evaluates vendors on a small number of dimensions, each of which is made up of a number of characteristics or factors. The dimensions and characteristics vary by market type—this example is based on how decision-makers evaluate technology providers.
Step 2: Rank the factors most important to the market
Step 3: Evaluate your performance against competitors on these factors
