Does Discipline Of Market Leaders Still Matter?

Copyright 2009 Dennis S. Vogel All rights reserved.
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I trust Michael Treacy & Fred Wiersema. While I read New Market Leaders, I was shocked when I read:
“It does not matter whether a company's market leadership derives primarily from customer intimacy, operational excellence or product leadership.”
Is Discipline Of Market Leaders out of date?
I’ve set up my business based on it, now what?

Subject: The Discipline Of Market Leaders Still Matters
In reply to: "Does Discipline Of Market Leaders Still Matter?"

I advise you to keep building your business based on "The Discipline Of Market Leaders" & "The New Market Leaders".

I found the sentence you referred to: "It does not matter whether a company's market leadership derives primarily from customer intimacy, operational excellence or product leadership."
I think the context - you referred to -in his book is on page 6 (but depending on the printed version, it could be on another page). How Fred wrote those paragraphs is a bit rough. I don't want to be hypercritical, but some of his sentences should be written as 2-3 sentences to make his thoughts clearer.

A while back, I remember being a bit surprised by that sentence the 1st time, so I reviewed it a few times. I think I have what Fred meant. That sentence is probably meant to connect with this "A market leader must now expect to meet challengers that match or surpass its own expertise. Intense competition for customers is driving companies to excel at every level."

Fred did what I tend to do - try to fit as much content into a small space as possible. He puts a few ideas into the same sentences.

In the context we're referring to, he went back in time to reintroduce concepts from "The Discipline Of Market Leaders" then continued with his new subject matter.

Those disciplines are still critical, but it's wrong to set them, then forget them. Success depends on regularly adjusting implementation of disciplines.

People shouldn't think those disciplines are enough to achieve & maintain long-term success without doing more work. After the primary, secondary & tertiary disciplines are set, a firm needs to keep improving because competitors keep improving & consumers' expectations change.
Example: As a retail logistics company, Walmart is far ahead of competitors. If Walmart didn't keep upgrading equipment & updating processes in logistics & retailing, Target could beat it in retailing & possibly logistics.

You still need to set your primary, secondary & tertiary disciplines & build your business accordingly. After you do, you need to keep monitoring your clientele & competitors. Do your best to determine what works & why (You may never get all the information necessary to make an in-depth, 100% accurate assessment, but having a good idea of reasons for competitors' success is vital). But don't just automatically copy what works for them. For more details, please check Small Business Innovation, Part 1 http://www.voy.com/31049/344.html

When you know what works for them & why, you can determine how to adjust your business practices based on the current competitive environment.

What I've included below is from
http://www.washingtonspeakers.com/speakers/speaker.cfm?SpeakerId=1539
Near the bottom of the page is: Copyright 2009 Washington Speakers Bureau, so Michael Treacy apparently still teaches/speaks about The Discipline of Market Leaders. It shows Treacy still values what he & Wiersema wrote.

Value Leadership: The Discipline of Market Leaders
Do you want to be the leader in your industry? Do you want to provide the best product, solution or cost to your customers? Treacy is co-author of the best seller The Discipline of Market Leaders, a book that revolutionized thinking about markets and competition. Throughout this presentation Treacy shares his leading-edge insights on operating model design for product leadership, operational excellence and customer intimacy. He helps audiences:
* Develop a powerful language for linking strategy to organizational design
* Predict their competitors' next customer-value improvement
* Learn what it takes to become a category killer in their markets
* Gain practical insight into how to grow market share in head-to-head competition

Double-Digit Growth
Your organization can achieve double-digit growth, even if others cannot. With a structured growth discipline, firms are more likely to achieve high growth by "grinding it out" than by "betting the farm" on risky strategies. Treacy demonstrates through compelling case examples that the foundation of steady growth is a portfolio of growth initiatives diversified by type, timeframe, & risk & a disciplined approach to growth management that can be developed by any team. In a presentation based on his book Double-Digit Growth, Treacy presents 4 key insights:
* Manage customer value as a foundation of your growth plan
* Focus on five - and only five - sources of revenue growth
* Manage growth as a portfolio problem
* Grow management capacity as you grow revenue, margin & profits

Sales Excellence: Building a System for Growth
It takes an entire system - not just an energetic sales force or a valued product - to achieve sales excellence. Treacy discusses leading-edge examples of sales effectiveness & draws out important implications for change within your sales system. In his presentation, Treacy advises your company on:
* Understand how your sales efforts enhance the value proposition of the company
* Creating sources of revenue statement to track & diagnose your company's selling effectiveness
* Making your sales processes structured, disciplined & streamlined
* Developing a broader set of options for how to organize, staff, train & lead a selling organization
* Creating a management system for identifying & tracking cross-sales opportunities
End of Michael Treacy's content.

I know it can be frustrating to finally master a concept & business practice, then find it's not enough by itself. There's always more to learn & implement. It keeps consultants, professors & authors in business.

I advise you to do your best to keep up with the best business practices, get as much help as you can afford & test methods continuously.

As Jason Jennings & Lawrence Haughton wrote: It's Not the Big that Eat the Small...It's the Fast that Eat the Slow. I've used a joke as an analogy a few times - You don't need to run faster than a lion. You just need to run faster than the others in a group. Lions don't chase the fastest runners, they catch the slowest.

It's vital to be as fast as you can be, otherwise eventually you'll be the slowest in the group.
Speed in business depends on gaining the right knowledge & implementing it optimally. You need to keep discovering more options & test them so you'll know which facts/knowledge are right & what the best implementation is.

Thank you for using my blog. Please let me know if I should clarify anything.

Copyright 2009 Dennis S. Vogel All rights reserved.
When you compete against big businesses with big budgets you need powerful marketing strategies & tactics. You'll find them here-
https://thriving-small-businesses.blogspot.com/
http://www.voy.com/31049/