Every company has a limited amount of time, money and resources that it may invest in one or another innovation. That is why efforts are focused only on those areas that will help the company stand out from the crowd of competitors.
As an example the company USAA, which provides financial services to the American. military and their families. Taking into account the unpredictable and ever-changing rhythm of life of its customers, USAA understands: it is important that it was easy to do business. The distinguishing feature of USAA style is a high quality customer service.
Responsibility for the quality of services impacts on those innovations that are held by the company. For example, it has developed an application that allows its clients to send a bill for service in the Bank for future debiting from mobile phone. It is very convenient for those who serve abroad. Although this service is available now at any bank, that USAA was the first developers of the technology.
The company builds its business model around its customers. A quarter of its newly hired personnel or have served in the army, or come from military families. This allows the company to better understand the needs of the military. It also offers free financial advice to those who were sent to the war zone, and those who have recently demobilized and returned to civilian life. Last year, the charity Educational Foundation (under the patronage of the USAA) has approximately 850 presentations on financial management for almost 50 thousand participants from the military. And their Survivor Relations team over the past year has helped more than 50 thousand family members of military personnel, killed in the conflict zones, to cope with the loss of their loved ones.
It thanks to this attitude USAA to 2012 has achieved 98% client loyalty. And 95% of customers said they were going to use the services of a lifetime.
And what is about your company? What makes it stand out? Whether is it investing enough in fact to implement the planned innovations?
Identifying the distinctive features of your company, keep the following in mind.
It must be hard to copy. And do not overreach.
One company, rendering services on repair of boilers, at first incorrectly decided that its distinctive feature is a special service package. But it turned out that there is nothing unique. It turned out that in fact its main value is not at all in this. The company took years to strengthen contacts with the masters on repairing boilers, and they have been working with it for years. And then the company has concentrated its efforts on how to further strengthen this network of contacts. This gave her the opportunity to take a unique and solid niche in the market.
Your customers will realize what your feature. I often hear from large companies that their distinctive feature is the “leadership style” or “culture”. But customers buy goods and services, which are already the result of that particular culture or leadership style. And if you think that the culture is your company's distinctive feature, ask yourself: “What value it brings to the lives of our customers?” Or how leadership style of your company makes you unique in the eyes of customers and competitors? The answers to these questions will help you understand what is the uniqueness of your company.
It is difficult to catch up with a competitor.
It is hard to beat today’s market leader in his field. So choose the convenient for you place, where you can win.
When the Progressive Insurance Company in the 90s decided to start to compete with the big players, it did not even try to measure forces with them on their field. It just launched a unique service Immediate Response Vehicles. Loss appraisers, working in insurance companies, were able to immediately get to the scene quickly to the certifying authority and the amount of compensation. This helped the company get into market leaders.
Tell employees about what differentiates your company from others. Now it is fashionable to say that “innovation is everyone's responsibility”. Unfortunately, it is often understood as the update to any little thing. It distracts from the really important cases and also inefficient. It is better to explain to the staff what is the distinguishing feature of your company, and organize everything so that people properly prioritized.
Once you have decided with this feature, make appropriate investments in innovation. Thus, you will not be wasting energy on something that is not promising, and put more resources into something that will bring more real dividends.
http://hbr-russia.ru/
