The Race for the bottom

Every day there’s a race for survival and profit in this ‘dog eat dog’ global economy: an organisation basically has three choices of strategy:

1. Stay roughly as we are, spend some money on marketing, try to win more business, and hope for the best.
2. Race to the bottom: be the cheapest
3. Race to the top: be the ones who the customers rave about.

Each strategy has it’s strengths and weaknesses … as follows:

Strategy 1: Stay roughly as we are, spend some money on marketing, try to win more business and hope for the best:

• Strengths: we know mostly what we’re doing, and we’re not rocking the boat too much.
• Weaknesses: it’s delusional: it’s guaranteed that someone somewhere is innovating and aiming to steal your market: the only saving grace is that you won’t know they’re doing it until it’s too late …

Strategy 2: Race to the bottom: be the cheapest:

• Strengths: this can have really good quick results: orders can come flooding in and we can be pleased with ourselves for a time.
• Weaknesses: it’s hugely hard to sustain: there’s little profit to support this approach (so you end up being very pushed), and it’s very hard to keep it up as many people elsewhere are busy working hard to be quicker or cheaper than you. And when you lose to someone else by just 1%, you might as well not exist: the customers were loyal to the deal … not you.

Strategy 3: Race to the top: be the ones the customers rave about.

• Strengths: this is sustainable, profitable and invigorating: it is a wonderful way to do business!
• Weaknesses: it’s slow and hard to achieve: this isn’t easy: it’s achieved through implementing world-class systems and executing them robustly and obsessively. This is hugely hard to do, and change comes slowly. (That’s why we call it ‘Slow Selling’).

So there’s your choice:

• Which one do you THINK makes most sense?
• Which one do you look for in your role as a customer of others?
• Which one does your organisation tend to favour through it’s real behaviour?

Is there a gap that needs some attention?