Possible Differentiation Strategies

How to differentiate is about understanding the main drivers of competitive advantage.

Products/Services Differentiation
The most obvious place to begin is with what you are selling.  Interestingly this area has become harder to differentiate in unless you have some kind of other help.  For example, high barrier to entry cost, regulatory help, patent protection etc.  As entry costs have reduced and markets opened up plus many competitors are shopping for supplies in the same asian/chinease factories many offerings look very similar.

Segment Differentiation
We live in a tutti-fruity, not vanilla world.  Treating people in the same, one size fits all way, does not deliver distinctive offerings.  A key area to differentiate is around customer segments.  To design your value propositions not on what you sell, but on how and why they buy. 

Brand Differentiation
Brands are worth far more than legacy tangible assets like buildings, stock, equipment, even bank balances.  We live in a brand literate world and more and more B2B transactions are brand based.  Brand values should be understood and built upon, deepened and embedded into the customers’ buying motivations.  They should never be undermined or compromised.

Brands are often linked to Segment Differentiation.

Cost Differentiation
To do something better for less money will always be a source of new competitive advantage.  Can you change the build/buy equation to your benefit? Using scale to drive down cost is an obvious approach, how do you achieve scale profitably is the bigger challenge.

Process Differentiation
This has become one of the most exciting areas to differentiate.  The way in which you do business.  Through innovative use of technology, changes to the supply chain, forming new alliances and partnerships and offering new service propositions are all part of process differentiation.

The above are not mutually exclusive; they can be blended and fashioned to become distinctive in their synthesized application.

SalesPathways has its own proprietary methodology for exploring and building a differentiated strategy.  For more detail contact:

Claudine McClean
Lead Consultant
T:  01789 734400
E:  claudinem@salespathways.com

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