So often I am asked by our technology and service provider clients to share what others are doing in the market and help them benchmark themselves against their competitors. While there are insights which can be uncovered, providers have competed against each other in a similar fashion, using comparable go-to-market sales models and market segmentation without much “separation or uniqueness” for decades. Providers continue to conduct best practices benchmarking against their “competition,” which can lead to a “me too” strategy making it hard for customers to quickly understand the differentiation.
Those who are tasked with conducting the benchmark must be careful to analyze the market not just in the obvious categories, but also include culture, circumstances, age of company and other ‘soft’ factors, or they may find themselves doing more harm than good with their recommendations. What is really important is not what others are doing but rather how they are doing it. If you just look at the ‘what’ of a competitor is doing you may find the majority of the market is basically doing the same thing. But when you take the time to dig into the ‘how’ they are doing it, you will have an opportunity to uncover what customers really value. Taking the time to uncover what makes market leaders better than the rest can produce far better result.
As we continue to research the Future of IT Sales we keep coming back to start from the customers point of view. If you are willing to add that variable into the mix you will be able to uncover the customers buying experience, from the initial exploration
and evaluation phase, to engagement and experience. By understanding how another company is delivering value to their customers, and comparing it against your business it will help you identify the right companies to evaluate. If you are a traditional, on-premise, hardware manufacturer looking at another company which also has software and services won’t allow you to compare from a customer experience perspective only a product or sales model perspective. It is important you can benchmark against ‘similar’ companies regardless of industry so look outside IT for innovative selling models which may be helpful to expand your thinking.
Remember, continuous benchmarking against traditional sales models pretty much guarantees indistinguishable go to market strategies and leaves you exposed to new entrants that will embrace disruptive models. You will be much better off if you can develop a continuous evolution/transformation strategy and then sustain differentiation in the market before the competition pays the ultimate compliment by copying it.