How to Capture Value in a Competitive Marketplace

Tom Dengenis is CEO of Synchro Ltd. in Birmingham England and a member of the MIT EMBA class of 2013.

Knowing how to live in the woods doesn’t make you an environmentalist any more than running a business helps you to truly understand the underlying forces of the market. But the business environment we operate in demands an understanding of what levers to pull in order to move markets in our favor.

Here are some levers that will help you create and capture value in a competitive marketplace:

Lever 1: Strategic Pricing

Pricing is often simply a tactical decision, i.e. the objective is to maximize economic profits. However, pricing can also be an important part of a company’s strategy and help differentiate the company from competitors.  Being able to look at product pricing through a strategic lens means getting inside of your customers head and segmenting your customers based on product requirements, willingness to pay, and service opportunities. Once you have done this you will be in a position to come up with a set of product and service packages, which align with your customers needs with what they are willing to pay.

Lever 2: A new lens on marketing strategy

It is common to look at marketing strategy through the lenses of product, price, place and promotion. However, you can open up a new perspective on marketing by viewing it through the lenses of strengths and capacity. Our marketing group has used this perspective to challenge the notion that tactics and constraints are the foundation of marketing. The result is that our enterprise objectives now define our future, and our capacity analysis informs us as to how we can achieve these goals. This has led to better resource utilization leveraged in a coherent direction.

Lever 3: Embrace and enable change

Change is at the heart of every situation in business. So seeing it for what it is and embracing it are powerful steps to cause positive change. That said, most of us know that forces acting on organizational change are not naturally aligned around one simple idea like making profits or creating shareholder wealth. Embracing change is only half the battle. If you build a company culture where change is not only expected, but is also encouraged, your culture and your employees will become enablers of change. 

Lever 4: Going beyond awareness

Awareness and understanding are two different things. For example, I’m aware of my golf handicap, but I have no understanding of what I can do to improve it. On the other hand, golf professionals’ have both awareness and an understanding of how to improve their game. In business we need to develop both awareness as well as an understanding of the forces affecting our personal leadership effectiveness. To make broader improvements in our organization we can use this same level of brutal honesty to move beyond awareness of problems and to seek a deep understanding on how to improve them.  When you encounter a problem where you lack understanding of the root causes, try a technique I call the 5 Why’s. Ask folks involved in the relevant area of your business Why the problem has emerged. Follow that up by asking Why to the answer they give you. Ask Why 5 times and you will develop a deeper understanding of the root cause(s) of the issue at hand.

Lever 5: Leverage your customers

Open a new discussion on how you can utilize your customers organizations to help support your marketing teams. Especially if you are a small organization, you may be surprised to find out that some of your big customers have capacity that you can utilize. For example, we worked with a large customer to leverage their social media techniques to build our product awareness. We now encourage our staff to think about how our goals and our customer’s goals are aligned, and to reach out to our customers for initiatives where we can realize mutual gain.

Lever 6: Don’t just run the numbers - focus on the model!

Running a business on the numbers is rule number one, but so is dribbling in basketball. Imagine leading an NBA team that spends the whole game dribbling. Numbers and data become much more valuable and actionable when they are structured with a model that can account for risk, probability and statistical significance. Our sales forecasting used to be based on simple arithmetic and a thumb in the air for growth projection, but now we base it on capacity, performance, and regression models. The models consider distribution of performance in a more realistic way than assuming that everyone performs at the same rate and with the same results. This has enabled us to refine our forecasts, strategy, and operational planning based on a more complete understanding of how the numbers move based on independent variable. Focusing on the model that frames your data empowers you to ask questions, make changes, and be an informed consumer of data.

What levers have you identified to move markets in your favor?

1. Fast features

First is adding new features to your existing products and services. Every company does this when they plan and develop the next generation of their products and services.

The first step is mapping:  We overlay Expandiverse features that are appropriate for your product or service, and work with you to select the ones that add the most value. Then we work with the individual product managers, development leads and their teams directly. The features are developed into prototypes, tested and readied for market.

For example, Apple’s new iOS 7 parallax screen saver simulates a 3D view. Expandiverse’s “Superior Viewer / Sensor” turns your video communications into 3D, so you feel like you’re with each other, and have just a window between you. Your smart phone, tablet, laptop and more can feel like you’re really with others, instead of looking at them like actors on a flat screen.

For a different kind of example, Expandiverse Technology includes security and protection for your physical devices and property. Your company’s phones and tablets will protect themselves, making them and your customers safer.

With new features like these you’ll move your customers into a 3D parallax digital world, with devices that are digitally protected and safer, and more.

Ready to race ahead while your competitors choke on your dust?

2. New products and services

A second option is new products and services. What would you like to add next, or in the future? Map Expandiverse Technology to your product road map and provide new choices ahead of your competitors. We work with your teams to help bring your new products and services to market.

An example is Virtual Teleportals (VTP), which can add sets of Expandiverse features to current smart phones, tablets, PCs/laptops, and other devices. One VTP feature is becoming continuously connected to your people, services, tools, resources and places. Another is continuous switching so your connections switch with you as you move to different devices. Other Expandiverse features can be added, like shared life spaces, privacy, boundaries and filters.

Your company can start delivering an Expandiverse of VTPs across many digital devices. Because it’s both digital and physical, the Expandiverse includes products for capturing your competitors’ customers before competitors can react.

Catch entire markets with new ways to use existing devices, with new Expandiverse Virtual Teleportals.

3. Strategic thrusts that transform markets and capture industries

Many of today’s markets are “winner take all.” One company dominates, like Google, Facebook and Amazon. A great example is Apple, which created three dominant products in one decade with the iPod, iPhone and iPad.

This third option asks the critical business question: Do you want your company to remain dominant, or become dominant?  Expandiverse Technology offers opportunities for leading companies to continue to lead, and for challengers to try and capture their entire market or industry.

Your answers determine the parts of Expandiverse technology you use, how you develop and apply them strategically to leap ahead of your industry. To try and own the future.

For example, devices are a $1 trillion/year industry that includes computers, laptops, tablets, smart phones, smart TVs, interactive wearables like Google Glasses, and more. Teleportals fit those niches and converge computing, communications, television, the Internet and more into a continuous digital reality architecture that follows and supports each user as he or she switches devices during the day. Teleportals make the whole digital world local to every user including their people, services, places, tools and resources. They turn users into global people who routinely use the whole digital world as their personal resource.

Teleportals let you leap ahead into tomorrow’s digital world, while handing you the opportunity to capture the leadership of this $1 trillion/year industry.

4. If you make this a digital world, is it your world?

Above that is the fourth and largest option. Instead of a feature, a product or a strategic thrust, the fourth option is a time shift.

We use so many screens that we can see and feel that we will evolve into a digital world. Now Expandiverse Technology can accelerate us, catapult us into that future.

Does your company want to own that future’s products and services as much as possible? If so, one step is to start that future before your competitors. Another is to control Expandiverse IP, which will be in force until 2031, so you can try one or more launches until you reach lift off.

The real question is, do you want to be that kind of company?

Because if you change the world and become a leader of our next digital world, you may climb to a position you can keep for a decade or two. Maybe for a generation or more.

Tomorrow is not just another day

Most good companies already know how to do the three familiar options:  New features, new products, strategic thrusts. They know the drill:  Evaluate new tech, decide what to use, manage development, use both employees and consultants, create prototypes, test them, then launch and sell, sell, sell.

It turns out to be the same to create an Expandiverse time shift into tomorrow’s digital world:  Select the tech, develop and test it, then launch and market it. If you hit the target, you win. If not, Expandiverse Technology is IP so you learn, plan and figure out how to try again.

If you want a future where your company is the leader, the Expandiverse has these four and more ways you can make it happen.

Ready to capture tomorrow’s markets? With Expandiverse Technology, your answer could change the future.