This comprehensive and richly illustrated book explains how to create a differentiation strategy―a strategy for being different in a way that causes customers to prefer your products and services to those of your competitors.
Filled with frameworks, tools, and templates, this book will enable you to create a compelling answer to your customers’ most fundamental question: Why should I buy from you instead of your competitors? What makes you different? The first half of the book provides an in-depth analysis of the concepts and principles that underlie the practice of differentiation, including the meaning of competitive advantage, competitive strategy, and customer-perceived value. The second half of the book explains how to create a differentiation strategy by identifying the target of your strategy, using customer research and creative problem-solving to design a unique offering, devising a value proposition that emphasizes a key benefit and the reasons to believe you will deliver the benefit, and designing the activity system that will implement your differentiation strategy.
Business leaders in companies large and small, business students, and leaders in government, higher education, and the non-profit sector will gain a deep understanding of all that goes into creating a successful, difficult-to-copy differentiation strategy.
Author(s): Kevin Holt
Publisher: Routledge
Year: 2022
Language: English
Pages: 202
City: New York
Cover
Endorsements
Half Title
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Contents
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Notes
1. Competition
Competition Defined
Competitive Advantage
Competitive Strategy
Kinds of Competitive Strategy
Notes
2. Value
Customer-Perceived Value
Conditional Value
Relative Value
The Value Equation
Notes
3. Benefits
The Meaning of Benefits
Types of Benefits
Physical Benefits
Mental Benefits
Emotional Benefits
Social Benefits
Economic Benefits
Cost and Risk Reduction Benefits
Notes
4. Functions
What vs. How
Production vs. Co-Production
Enablement and Relief
Performance
Function Analysis
Notes
5. Offerings
Products and Services
Bundles and Complements
Company
The Offering
Notes
6. Differentiation
Different Why?
Different Where?
Different How?
How Different?
Different for How Long?
Different at What Level of Abstraction?
Notes
7. Segmentation
Supply Chain Segments
Market Segments
Target Market Segment
Roles
Smaller Market Segments
Bottom-up Segmentation
Notes
8. Attributes
Strategy Canvas
Attribute Maps
Attribute Lines
Hidden in Plain View
Notes
9. Actions
Consumption Chain
Jobs-To-Be-Done
Mental Models
Journey Maps
Notes
10. Research
Research Objectives
Interviews
Observation
Surveys
Employee Idea Systems
Living Labs
Notes
11. Creative Problem-Solving
Problems
MECE
A Brief Look Back
Creative Thinking
Logic
Expertise
Analogy
Experimentation
Notes
12. The Value Proposition
Benefit Proposition
Reasons-to-Believe
Micro-scripts
Putting it All Together
Notes
13. The Activity System
The Value Chain/Network/Shop
The Strategy Wheel
The Dependency Diagram
Digging Deeper
Notes
14. The Strategy Process
Target
Benefits
Offering
Value Proposition
Activity System
Comprehensive, Iterative, and Ongoing
Index
