I have a radical thought, it’s developing, and it could be the kind of thought that birthed blue ocean strategies. The problem with the existing framework of strategy formulation is the fact that a big amount of time is dedicated to thinking about the competition. The danger in this kind of thinking is it tends to produce more defensive strategies, but it also produces the kind of strategies that will only beat existing competition and nothing better. These kinds of strategies soon fail the moment a better competitor emerges, or when competition emerges on a new front.
Imagine you’re a player in the fast-foods segment (pre-food delivery times). You have such unique strategies of outcompeting the existing players. Then one day, a logistics company decides to open a food delivery segment. You are taken unawares. You’d never anticipated this possibility. Panic kicks in. Can you roll out a similar distribution channel in the short term? Probably not. What does that say about your earlier strategy?
It’s thus best to bring centre strategies back to where they matter; ‘in the hearts of the consumer’. Business leaders and strategists should be reframing their questions. Instead of asking, ‘how can we be better than the competition’, the better question should be ‘how can we serve the consumer so well that they will never have to think about any competition?’
The competition is never the gold standard of what’s better for the consumer. Often, the competition is in the same fuzzy world as you. Strategies must be formulated from the consumer journey. If a bank asked the question of ‘how can we be such a great bank than our clients will never dream of leaving? That they will never tolerate such a thought?’ That then unpacks insights. For a bank to do this, it could mean certain operational efficiencies. It could mean choosing more reliable banking systems. It could mean hiring employees with a certain cultural fit. It could mean that the top leadership will have to use the same banking facilities and not have any privileges. For how then will they experience this ‘great banking experience’?