System of competitive advantages. Forming a company's competitive advantages: a step-by-step plan

Talk about the number of completed projects, the volume of products produced, publish successful cases. It is very important not to slip into self-praise, but to show how much real benefit your products or services brought.

Are your services useful? Tell us about it!

Post reviews from real customers with links to their social media profiles/company websites so that potential clients can get confirmation. 90% of people will not check the authenticity of these reviews, but such openness on your part will earn their trust.

High level of quality/service

And the standard continuation: “Our company employs highly qualified specialists who have undergone special training.”

At all The qualifications of specialists do not indicate the level of service, unless your employees took courses on “How to lick a client.”

Take the example of hotels for which international service standards have been developed. A person entering a three-star hotel already has a rough idea of ​​what awaits him: a room with an area of ​​at least 12 square meters. m, free bottled water, bathroom with towels, soap and toilet paper.

What can a client expect in your company?

Write to him how quickly the repair will be carried out or the goods will be delivered. Explain how the personal manager will work to solve his problem - step by step, from receiving the application to the result. Convince him that even after completing the order you are always ready to help.

Imagine calling a company about a large contract, and the sales representative replies, “We’re having lunch, call us later.” And hangs up. Will you call him back or find another supplier?

If the company's employees are not polite and friendly, your " high level service."

And if you want to boast about the professionalism of your employees, tell us about them separately: where they received their qualifications, how long they have been working in their specialty and what they can do.

Individual approach

This expression has not convinced potential customers for a long time, it is so hackneyed. Most often, they simply don’t notice him, and if they do, they grin skeptically, mentally saying “well, well, of course.”

Don't believe me? Look through the websites of your competitors - in 99 cases out of 100 you will find this phrase, if not on the “About the company” page, then on some other page.

Replace general phrases with specific information.

List point by point everything you rely on when developing a project or completing an order. Explain what you mean by the concept of “individual approach”.

Surely put fulfilling the customer’s wishes first. But you understand that others are doing the same thing. Agree, it’s hard to imagine a designer who makes a red kitchen for clients who dream of a green one.

Write, what is included in your system of relationships with customers →

• How do you satisfy the needs of each client depending on the specifics of the tasks assigned to them. What exactly do you take into account when developing a project or completing an order?

• Which additional conditions cooperation at the discretion of the client you can include in standard contract: different payment schemes, individual discounts, delivery, assembly.

• How broad are the powers of the client who wishes to participate in the process or observe it with the possibility of adjustment. At what point are wishes no longer accepted?

Low prices and/or great deals

Another “nothing” stamp. And if you consider that not only low, but also high prices can drive sales with equal success, then this advantage becomes completely useless.

Instead of empty words use honest numbers.

For example: we offer kitchens in Scandinavian style at a price of 20,000 rubles per linear meter, the basic package includes standard sections, a countertop, a sink, and a dish dryer.

Or: in January we are reducing the cost of the “Chicardos” collection by 30% - when ordering a kitchen 3 meters long, you save 25,000 rubles.

Most often, companies that have nothing else to attract a client say about low prices. Don't deny the buyer minimum math skills. Believe me, he will do a great job of comparing prices on his own.

When choosing a product, the buyer compares several alternative (not identical!) options:

• wooden houses - with brick and aerated concrete
• white gold jewelry - with silver and platinum
• facial mesotherapy - with sculptural massage and plasma lifting.

Make a comparison table, based on the results of which your proposal wins as the safest, fastest to achieve, durable (warm, prestigious, comfortable - select the advantages of your product or service). And then the price will fade into the background.

Wide range

These 18 characters without spaces will only become an advantage when the client sees them as a solution to their problems →

• Possibility of choosing from a specific product range. You can offer dozens or even hundreds of gold rings, but the buyer is interested in a specific size. And if it is not on the display of the online store, for the client the slogan about the richness of the assortment will remain nothing. An initially loyal visitor will go to competitors next time so as not to be disappointed again.

• Opportunity to purchase related products- a lid for the frying pan, a brush for collecting animal hair - for the vacuum cleaner, wipes for cleaning the screen - for the monitor. This is beneficial for both parties. The client buys everything in one place and saves on delivery, the seller increases profits by 5-15%.

• Possibility to order a turnkey service. When you talk about a company's wide range of services, list them. Indicate which of them you provide separately and which ones only as a package. For example, a consulting company performs naming exclusively as part of a multi-stage company registration service, while assistance in preparing documents may be outside its scope.

Often a list of useless benefits is posted in the “About Us” section. Already fixed it? Great! Now check whether you have used all the ways to persuade customers on the “About” page. Look into the arguments that hit the mark.

And admit in the comments, do you often have professional professionals with an individual approach working in your companies? 😉

About the author.

Honestly, competitive advantages- This is a topic to which I have an ambivalent attitude. On the one hand, rebuilding a company from competitors in the market is a very interesting task. Especially when the company, at first glance, is like everyone else and does not stand out in anything special. On this issue I have a principled position. I am convinced that any business can be rebuilt, even if it is one of a thousand and trades at prices above the market average.

Types of competitive advantages

Conventionally, all competitive advantages of any organization can be divided into two large groups.

1. Natural (price, terms, delivery conditions, authority, clients, etc.)
2. Artificial (personal approach, guarantees, promotions, etc.)

Natural benefits carry more weight because they represent factual information. Artificial advantages are more of a manipulation, which, if used correctly, can greatly strengthen the first group. We will return to both groups below.

Now comes the fun part. Even if a company considers itself to be the same as everyone else, inferior to competitors in terms of prices and believes that it does not stand out in any way, it still has natural advantages, plus, it can be made artificial. You just need to spend a little time finding them and formulating them correctly. And this is where it all starts with competitive analysis.

Competitive analysis that doesn't exist

Do you know what is the most amazing thing about Runet? 80-90% of businesses do not conduct competitive analysis and do not highlight the company’s advantages based on its results. That’s all, but what you have enough time and energy in most cases to do is look at your competitors and rip off some elements from them. That's the whole setup. And it is here that clichés grow by leaps and bounds. Who do you think was the first to coin the phrase “Young and dynamically developing company”? It doesn't matter. Many took it and... Quietly adopted it. On the quiet. In the same way, clichés appeared:

• Individual approach
• Highly qualified professionalism
• High quality
• First class service
• Competitive prices

And many others, which in fact are not competitive advantages. If only because no company in its right mind would say that its employees are amateurs, and the quality is a little worse than none.

I am generally surprised by the attitude of some businessmen. If you talk to them, everything “somehow” works for them, orders “somehow” go through, there is a profit - and okay. Why invent, describe and count something? But as soon as things start to get tough, that’s when everyone remembers marketing, differentiation from competitors, and the company’s advantages. It is noteworthy that no one is counting the money that was lost due to such a frivolous approach. But this is also profit. Could be...

In 80-90% of cases, Runet businesses do not conduct competitive analysis and do not show the company’s advantages to their clients.

However, all this has a positive point. When no one shows their advantages, it’s easier to rebuild. This means it’s easier to attract new customers who are searching and comparing.

Competitive advantages of products (products)

There is another serious mistake that many businesses make when formulating benefits. But here it is worth mentioning right away that this does not apply to monopolists. The essence of the mistake is that the client is shown the advantages of the product or service, but not the company. In practice it looks like this.

That is why it is very important to correctly place the emphasis and bring to the fore the benefits and emotions that a person receives and experiences when working with the organization, and not from purchasing the product itself. I repeat, this does not apply to monopolists who produce a product that is inextricably linked with them.

Main competitive advantages: natural and artificial

It's time to return to the varieties of benefits. As I already said, they can be divided into two large groups. Here they are.

Group No. 1: natural (actual) benefits

Representatives of this group exist on their own, as a fact. Only many people don’t write about them. Some think it’s obvious, others because they hide behind corporate clichés. The group includes:

Price- one of the strongest competitive advantages (especially when there are no others). If your prices are lower than those of your competitors, write how much. Those. not “low prices”, but “prices 20% below market prices”. Or “Wholesale prices to retail”. Numbers play a key role, especially when you work in the corporate segment (B2B).

Timing (time). If you are delivering goods from today to today, say so. If you deliver to remote regions of the country in 2-3 days, tell us about it. Very often the issue of delivery times is very acute, and if you have thoroughly worked out logistics, then write specifically where and for how much you can deliver the goods. Again, avoid abstract clichés like “fast/prompt delivery.”

Experience. If your employees love what you sell and know all the ins and outs of your business, write about it. Buyers love working with professionals they can consult with. In addition, when purchasing a product or service from an experienced seller, customers feel more secure, which brings them closer to purchasing from you.

Special conditions. If you have any special conditions supplies (deferred payment, postpayment, discounts, availability of a showroom, geographic location, wide warehouse program or assortment, etc.). Anything that competitors don’t have will do.

Authority. Certificates, diplomas, diplomas, major clients or suppliers, participation in exhibitions and other evidence that increase the significance of your company. The status of a recognized expert is a great help. This is when company employees speak at conferences, have a well-promoted YouTube channel, or give interviews in specialized media.

Narrow specialization. Imagine that you have a Mercedes car. And in front of you are two workshops: a specialized service that deals only with Mercs, and a multidisciplinary one that repairs everything from UAZs to tractors. Which service will you contact? I bet the first one, even if it has higher prices. This is one of the varieties of unique trade offer(USP) - see below.

Other actual benefits. For example, you may have a wider range of products than your competitors. Or a special technology that others do not have (or that everyone has, but which competitors do not write about). Anything can happen here. The main thing is that you have something that others don’t have. As a fact. This also constitutes your USP.

Group No. 2: artificial advantages

I especially love this group because it helps a lot in situations where the customer’s company does not have any advantages as such. This is especially true in the following cases:

1. A young company, just entering the market, has no clients, no cases, no reviews. As an option, specialists come from more large company and organize their own.
2. The company occupies a niche somewhere in the middle: it does not have a wide range, like large retail chains, and does not have a narrow specialization. Those. sells goods, like everyone else, at prices slightly above the market average.
3. The company has some adjustments, but it is the same as its competitors. Those. everyone in the niche uses the same actual advantages: discounts, experience, etc.

In all three cases, introducing artificial advantages helps. These include:

Added value. For example, you sell laptops. But you can't compete on price with a larger seller. Then you use a trick: install an operating system and a basic set of programs on your laptop, selling it a little more. In other words, you create added value. This also includes various promotions a la “Buy and Win...”, “When buying an apartment - a T-shirt as a gift”, etc.

Personal adjustment. It works great when everyone around is hiding behind corporate clichés. Its essence is that you show the face of the company (for example, the director) and involve. It works great in almost any niche: from selling children's toys to armored doors.

Responsibility. A very strong advantage that I actively use on my laboratory’s website. Combines perfectly with the previous point. People love to work with people who are not afraid to take responsibility for the products and/or services they sell.

Reviews. Provided they are real. The more authoritative the person who gives you feedback, the stronger the impact on the audience (see trigger “”). Reviews on letterhead with a stamp and signature work better.

Demonstration. The best presentation is a demonstration. Let's say you have no other advantages. Or there are, but implicit. Make a clear presentation of what you are selling. If these are services, show how you provide them, make a video. At the same time, it is important to place the accents correctly. For example, if you check each product for functionality, tell us about it. And this will be an advantage for your company.

Cases. This is a kind of visual demonstration of solved problems (completed projects). I always recommend describing them because they work great for sales. But there are situations when there are no cases. This is especially true for young companies. Then you can make so-called artificial cases. The idea is simple: do yourself or a hypothetical client a favor. As an option - to a real client on a mutual basis (depending on the type of services, if possible). This way you will have a case that you can show and demonstrate your expertise.

Unique selling proposition. We have already talked about it a little higher. Its essence is that you enter some detail or disclose information that sets you apart from your competitors. Take me, for example. I provide copywriting services. But many specialists provide a wide range of copywriting services. And my USP is that I guarantee results expressed in numbers. Those. I work with numbers as an objective indicator of performance. And it's catchy. You can find out more about the USP in.

How to find and correctly describe the company's advantages

As I already said, I firmly believe that every company has its own advantages (and disadvantages, but that doesn’t matter now :)). Even if she is a strong middle peasant and sells everything like everyone else. And even if it seems to you that your company does not stand out in any way, the easiest way to understand the situation is to ask directly the clients who are already working with you. Be prepared that the answers may surprise you.

The easiest way to find out strengths For your company, ask your clients why they chose you.

Someone will say that they work with you because you are closer (geographically). Some will say that you inspire confidence, while others simply liked you. Collect and analyze this information and it will increase your profits.

But that's not all. Take a piece of paper and write down the strengths and weaknesses of your company. Objectively. Like in spirit. In other words, what you have and what you don’t have (or don’t have yet). At the same time, try to avoid abstractions, replacing them with specifics. Check out the examples.

Not all advantages can and should be written about on the same site. However, at this stage the task is to write down as many strong and weaknesses enterprises. This is an important starting point.

Take a pen and paper. Divide the sheet into two columns and write down the advantages of the company in one and the disadvantages of the company in the second. Maybe with a cup of coffee. Don’t look at the rowan tree, it’s just there for the ambience.

Yes, we have, but this

Look at the examples:

You get the idea. This gives you several types of competitive advantages:

1. Natural (factual information that you have that sets you apart from your competitors)
2. Artificial (amplifiers that also set you apart from competitors - guarantees, personal approach, etc.)
3. “Shifters” are disadvantages that are turned into advantages. They complement the first two points.

Little trick

I use this trick from time to time, when it is not possible to fully show off my strengths, and also in a number of other cases when I need something more “weighty”. Then I don’t just write the company’s advantages, but combine them with the benefits that the client receives from the product or service. It turns out to be a kind of “explosive mixture”.

See what this looks like in practice.

• Was: Experience 10 years
• Became: Budget savings of up to 80% due to 10 years of experience

Or another example.

• Was: Low prices
• Became: The price is 15% lower, plus a reduction in transport costs by 10% due to our own fleet of vehicles.

You can learn in detail about how to correctly form benefits from.

Resume

Today we looked at the types of main competitive advantages of a company and, using examples, we looked at how to formulate them correctly. At the same time, it is important to understand that everything that we did today should by default be included in competitive strategy(if it is being developed). In other words, everything will work better when linked into a single system.

I really hope that the information in this article will expand your capabilities and allow you to conduct competitive analysis more effectively. In turn, if you have any questions, ask them in the comments.

I'm sure you will succeed!

⏱ reading time: 15 minutes

The goal of a marketing strategy is to understand and cope with the competition. Some companies are always ahead of others. Industry affiliation does not matter - the gap in the profitability of companies within one industry is higher than the differences between industries.

The differences between companies are especially important during times of crisis, when the created competitive advantage is an excellent foundation for profitable growth.

Competitive advantages of the company

• Advantage Any success factor that increases a consumer's willingness to pay or reduces a company's costs.
• Competitive advantage- a success factor that is significant for the consumer, in which the company surpasses all competitors

Building a competitive advantage means achieving a greater gap between costs and customer willingness to pay for a product than your competitors.

Step 1. Determine success factors

The answer to the question “how to create a company’s competitive advantage” is not so important. If you are confident that you will achieve competitive advantage through 24/7 delivery, then you will find a solution to realize this competitive advantage. It is much more difficult to determine what exactly they will become.

To do this, first of all, we write down all the advantages, or success factors, that are important for buyers. For example, like this.

Step 2. Segment the target audience

A separate shuttle for business class passengers is an advantage. But achieving this competitive advantage is completely irrelevant to those flying in the economy segment. Determining competitive advantages always occurs for a specific segment of the target audience - with its specific needs and desires.

The decision to sell to “everyone” leads to questions about where to look for these “everyone” and what to offer them. It turns out that “everyone” must be searched “everywhere” and offered “everyone”. This strategy will kill the budget of any company.

Let's take the example of achieving competitive advantages for a company selling flowers. Among the target audience, we will highlight the segments of those who buy flowers impulsively, prepare a pre-planned gift or, say, decorate their homes.

Having determined for whom we are going to create a competitive advantage, we will evaluate whether it is worth it - we will assess the market capacity and saturation competition in each segment.

Read more about segmentation criteria in our article: “”

Step 3. Determine key success factors

The buyer is demanding. Many factors are important to him - from the consultant’s smile and website design to low prices. But just because a buyer wants something doesn’t mean he’s willing to pay for it.

The value of a competitive advantage is the buyer's willingness to pay for it. How more money are willing to give for the development of a competitive advantage - the higher its significance.

Our task is to form a very short list of key success factors from the long list of various consumer “wants” that can determine the company’s competitive advantages.

In our example, the key success factors are the same for all three target audience segments. IN real life Each segment usually has 1-2 of its own factors.

Step 4. Assess the importance of key success factors for target audience segments

What is important to one segment of the target audience may be a weak competitive advantage for consumers from another segment.

If you have an idea to buy flowers to give them this evening, then the main thing for an impulsive decision is appearance(fullness of bud opening) and speed of purchase. This is more important than the ability to choose from a large assortment, the lifespan of the bouquet - it is necessary that the flowers be present and look good this evening.

The opposite situation is buying flowers to decorate your home. Delivery is not a problem, but the question of how long the flowers will last comes to the fore.

Therefore, the importance of key success factors is determined for each segment of the target audience separately.

*) we clarify - CFUs are taken as an example, close to life, but do not reflect the real case.

For our company, identifying the right competitive advantages that allow our clients to attract more consumers, get more money from them and interact with them longer is one of the main blocks of the developed marketing strategy. Therefore, we strive to achieve an ideal situation - when every cell of all tables in this article is expressed in money. You can create a working marketing strategy only by understanding the cost of CFU from the buyer’s point of view, market volume, costs, etc.

All this information can be obtained. But sometimes there is no time or resources for this. Then we recommend using a comparison on a 5 or 10 point scale. In this case, remember that any factual data is better than guesswork. Hypotheses must be put forward based on the company’s big data, monitoring customer reviews, monitoring the sales process of competitors, and not taken from the head “because it seems so to me.” Expert forecasts too often fail.

Step 5. Compare the achieved competitive advantages

At this point, we have figured out what is important to your consumers. This is good. It’s bad that competitors are also aware.

To understand the starting conditions, it is necessary to assess the current degree of development of the company's competitive advantages. Strictly speaking, you only have a competitive advantage when your offering outperforms all of your direct competitors on some key success factor.

The assessment of competitive advantages is made exclusively from the point of view of consumers. The opinion of the company's employees, and especially the management, does not say anything. The director may be proud of the website developed according to his idea, on which millions were spent, but this in no way indicates the convenience of the site for clients.

Step 6. Determine sources of competitive advantage

Any competitive advantage is the result of a company’s activities. Each action incurs costs and at the same time affects the buyer's willingness to purchase the product. Differences in the results of these actions form competitive advantages.

Therefore, we compile a list of all the company’s activities by desegregating its activities into separate processes. In projects, we begin the analysis with the activities that are necessary to produce the basic product or service, and only then add related activities.

Step 7. Linking key success factors and company activities

Competitive advantage is formed at the intersection of various activities. For example, an increase in the assortment in the flower trade requires an increase in working capital, the availability of storage space for products, a sufficient area of ​​sales points, additional qualifications of sellers and service personnel, etc.

We determine which business processes are associated with the development of each of the found competitive advantages and the size of their contribution.

Step 8. Assess the company’s costs for creating competitive advantages

At this step, we look at how much it costs to achieve a competitive advantage. Any company activity has its costs.

In our example, we estimate the level of costs on a 10-point scale, but in real life, a company must more or less accurately know its costs. Pay attention to the calculation methodology - usually accountants tend to record most of the expenses in production, thereby reducing indirect costs.

Having understood the size of costs, we determine their drivers. Why are the costs what they are? Maybe we pay a lot for shipping because the business size is small and we don't have enough freight? There are many cost drivers. They depend on the size of the company, its geographical location, institutional factors, access to resources, etc.

Cost driver analysis helps estimate the costs competitors will have to create a similar competitive advantage. It is difficult to obtain data directly, but by understanding the drivers that affect the amount of costs, we can predict the volume of competitors' expenses.

Step 9. Looking for resources to create a competitive advantage

Maintaining the achieved competitive advantage at a constant level is only possible if sufficient resources are available. In addition, analysis of the resources that the company has helps to choose an area for quickly creating a competitive advantage.

Step 10. Choosing a direction for developing a competitive advantage

We look at the two resulting final pictures and think. There are only three possibilities for achieving competitive advantage:

• increase willingness to buy a product without significantly increasing costs
• dramatically reduce costs with virtually no impact on willingness to buy
• increase willingness to buy and reduce costs at the same time.

The third direction looks the most attractive. But finding such a solution is extremely difficult. Typically, companies simply waste valuable resources trying to create a competitive advantage across the board.

Basic rules for determining competitive advantage.

• We are looking for options that create the largest gap between the buyer’s desire to pay and our costs.
• We don’t try to select all the attractive options at once. Having decided to occupy one peak, we will no longer climb another. It is most profitable to choose a peak that is not crowded with competitors.
• We remember our competitors and what motivates each of them. If you decide to change some business process, how will your closest competitor react to this?

• Success factors. The more you find, the better. Typically, managers tend to focus on a few product features. This reduces the perception of the benefits that the consumer receives and brings your marketing strategy closer to that of your competitors. To find competitive advantages that are less competitive, think about the benefits a company creates for all its stakeholders: customers, employees, suppliers, dealers, and so on.
• Key success factors. The more significant the factor, the more restructuring of the company’s activities it requires. If you are not one of the industry leaders, it is better not to immediately try to compete on the main factors, or groups of factors (“best in quality”)
• Market. The question should not be “can we create a competitive advantage for this segment of the target audience”, but “can we create a competitive advantage for this segment of the target audience and remain profitable.” Having current costs in hand, we assume how much the company will pay to turn a key success factor into a full-fledged competitive advantage
• Current competitive position. It's difficult to build a competitive advantage in which you're hopelessly behind. Especially if it is a capital-intensive or time-consuming process.
• Costs. Competitive advantage can be achieved by focusing on costs that are most different from competitors, are large enough to influence the overall cost structure and are associated with discrete activities.

Fear often gets in the way of building a competitive advantage. The desire to become the best will certainly entail an increase in prices or, conversely, a decrease in the desire to buy our product. Reducing costs reduces the client’s desire to use our service (a ticket to a low-cost airline is cheap, but you can’t take luggage with you, there’s no food, airports are far away). Improving product characteristics leads to increased costs. This is absolutely normal. All that matters is the widening gap between the buyer's willingness to pay and the company's costs.

Step 11. We create competitive advantages by changing the company’s actions

As I wrote above, the creation of competitive advantages is the result of the company’s actions. To make the offer superior to all competitors, it is necessary to reconfigure some of the activities.

For example, achieving a “low cost” competitive advantage. There is no point in trying to compete with a discounter by simply lowering prices. A successful discounter has become so due to the fact that most of the company's activities are subordinated to creating this competitive advantage. If a Walmart employee wants to get a new pen, he returns the old one, which is covered in writing. There are no small details in creating a competitive advantage.

Again we look at the connection between the chosen competitive advantage and the company’s activities. Where is this competitive advantage created? And we invest specifically in the development of selected business processes.

Ask yourself the following questions

• Are our actions different from those of our competitors?
• Are we doing the same things but in a different way?
• How can we change our actions to gain competitive advantage?

As a result, determine the minimum and sufficient set of activities that the company must perform in order to form a competitive advantage. Usually they try to copy only obvious things, forgetting that much is hidden under water. It is the complex of activities that creates a competitive advantage that cannot be copied.

Actions aimed at developing a competitive advantage must be connected by a single logic. M. Porter's classic example is the set of actions of SouthWest Airlines that created its competitive advantage. As a result, the airline was the only low-cost airline on the market for 25 years. It is impossible to achieve a similar competitive advantage overnight.

In essence, this is a marketing strategy. This set of actions is almost impossible to copy and surpass.

Strategic management is designed to ensure the company's survival in the long term. Of course, when it comes to survival in a competitive market environment, there is no question that a company can eke out a miserable existence. It is very important to understand that as soon as someone connected with a company becomes unhappy with this connection, he leaves the company, and after a while it dies. Therefore, survival in the long term automatically means that the company copes with its tasks quite successfully, bringing satisfaction with its activities to those who enter the sphere of its business interaction. First of all, this concerns customers, employees of the company and its owners.

Concept of competitive advantage

How can an organization ensure its survival in the long term, what must be inherent in it so that it can cope with its tasks? The answer to this question is completely obvious: the organization must produce a product that will consistently find buyers. This means that the product must, firstly, be so interesting to the buyer that he is willing to pay money for it, and, secondly, it must be more interesting to the buyer than a similar or similar product in consumer qualities produced by other companies. If a product has these two properties, then the product is said to have competitive advantages.

Consequently, a company can successfully exist and develop only if its product has competitive advantages. Strategic management is designed to create competitive advantages.

Consideration of the issue of creating and maintaining competitive advantages involves analyzing the relationships and, accordingly, the interaction of three subjects of the market environment. The first subject is “our” company producing a certain product. The second subject Ekt is a buyer who may or may not buy this product. The third buyer is competitors who are ready to sell their products to the buyer, which can satisfy the same need as and a product produced by “our” company. The main thing in this market “love” triangle is the buyer. Therefore, the competitive advantages of a product are the value contained in the product for the buyer, which encourages him to buy this product. Competitive advantages do not necessarily arise from comparing the product of “our” company with the products of competitors. It may be that there are no firms on the market offering a competitive product, but nevertheless the product of “our” company is not sold. This means that it does not have sufficient customer value or competitive advantage.

Types of competitive advantages

What creates competitive advantages? It is believed that there are two possibilities for this. First, the product itself may have a competitive advantage. One type of competitive advantage of a product is its price characteristics. Very often, a buyer purchases a product only because it is cheaper than other products that have similar consumer properties. Sometimes a product is purchased only because it is very cheap. Such purchases can occur even if the product has no consumer utility for the buyer.

The second type of competitive advantage is differentiation. In this case, we are talking about the fact that the product has distinctive features that make it attractive to the buyer. Differentiation is not necessarily related to the consumer (utilitarian) qualities of the product (reliability, ease of use, good functional characteristics, etc.). It can be achieved due to such characteristics that have nothing to do with its utilitarian consumer properties, for example, due to the brand.

Secondly, in addition to creating a competitive advantage in a product, a firm may try to create a competitive advantage for its product in its market position. This is achieved by securing the buyer or, in other words, by monopolizing part of the market. In principle, this situation contradicts market relations, since in it the buyer is deprived of the opportunity to choose. However, in real practice, many companies manage not only to create such a competitive advantage for their product, but also to maintain it for quite a long time.

Strategy for creating competitive advantages

There are three strategies for creating competitive advantage. The first strategy is price leadership. With this strategy, the company's focus when developing and manufacturing a product is costs. The main sources of creating price advantages are:

Rational business management based on accumulated experience;

Economies of scale due to lower costs per unit of production while increasing production volumes;

Savings on variety as a result of cost reduction due to the synergistic effect that occurs in the production of various products;

Optimization of intra-company relations, helping to reduce company-wide costs;

Integration of distribution networks and supply systems;

Optimization of the company's activities over time;

Geographical location of the company's activities, allowing to achieve cost reduction through the use of local characteristics.

Implementing pricing strategy creating competitive advantages for a product, the company must not forget that its product at the same time must correspond to a certain level of goodness and differentiation. Only in this case can price leadership bring a significant effect. If the quality of the price leader's product is significantly lower than the quality of similar products, then creating a price competitive advantage may require such a strong price reduction that it can lead to negative consequences for the company. However, it should be kept in mind that cost leadership and differentiation strategies should not be mixed, and certainly should not be attempted at the same time.

Differentiationis the second strategy for creating competitive advantage. With this strategy, the company tries to give the product something distinctive, unusual, that the buyer may like and for which the buyer is willing to pay. A differentiation strategy aims to make a product different from what competitors make it. To achieve this, the company has to go beyond the functional properties of the product.

Firms do not necessarily use differentiation to obtain price premiums. Differentiation can help expand sales by increasing the number of products sold or by stabilizing consumption, regardless of fluctuations in market demand.

In the case of implementing a strategy for creating competitive advantages through differentiation, it is very important to focus on consumer priorities and interests of the buyer. It was previously said that a differentiation strategy involves creating a product that is unique in its own way, different from the products of competitors. But it is important to remember that for a competitive advantage to emerge, the product's unusualness, novelty, or uniqueness must be of value to the buyer. Therefore, the differentiation strategy assumes the study of consumer interests as a starting point. To do this you need:

It is enough to clearly imagine not just who the buyer is, but who makes the decision on purchase issues;

Study the consumer criteria by which the choice is made when purchasing a product (price, functional properties, guarantees, delivery time, etc.);

Determine the factors that form the buyer’s understanding of the product (sources of information about the properties of the product, image, etc.).

After this, based on the ability to create a product with the appropriate degree of differentiation and the appropriate price (the price should allow the buyer to purchase the differentiated product), the firm can begin to develop and produce this product.

The third strategy a firm can use to create a competitive advantage in its product is focusing on the interests of specific consumers. In this case, the company creates its product specifically for specific customers. Concentrated product creation is associated with the fact that either some unusual need of a certain group of people is satisfied (in this case, the company's product is very specialized), or a specific system of access to the product is created (a system for selling and delivering the product). By pursuing a strategy of concentrated creation of competitive advantages, a company can use both price attraction and differentiation at the same time.

As you can see, all three strategies for creating competitive advantages have significant distinctive features, allowing us to conclude that the company must clearly define for itself what strategy it is going to implement, and in no case mix these strategies. At the same time, it should be noted that there is a certain connection between these strategies, and this should also be taken into account by firms when creating competitive advantages.

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More and more often in texts on websites I see subheadings in the style a la “Why us?”, under which lists like this are inserted:

We are a dynamically developing company

We use only advanced technologies

We employ professionals in their field

And so on... At first glance, it seems like text and text, what’s wrong with that: everyone writes like that. But let's look at this text more closely. This list is supposed to highlight competitive advantages. Competitive advantages are what differentiate a company from others.

Now tell me what adequate competitor would write:

Our company stands still and does not develop

The quality of our services is complete trash

We have the most shabby technologies and archaic approaches

We employ only laymen and amateurs

We bring all clients under the same brush

Exactly! Nobody will write like that. So it turns out that the advantages described in the first list are not advantages at all, since competitors also write about the same thing.

But that's not all

And now the most interesting thing... In general, it is believed that the company’s advantages should help the consumer in making a choice. Therefore, they must tell the consumer what he gets by choosing a particular brand. However, when companies everywhere shout: “We are this..., we are that... and we also have... how great we are!”, the consumer has a logical question: “Wait a minute, guys, where am I?”

Lack of customer focus is the most common mistake made by most benefit writers. At the same time, special unique people manage to present the height of “creativity” instead of specificity and accessibility, which brings even more confusion. For example:

We make foie gras from liverwort for our clients.

We clone ourselves to solve any problem

We ignore the laws of space-time continuum

Etc. However, you can dwell on the shortcomings as much as you like. Let's take a closer look at how to properly describe benefits.

How to correctly describe the company's advantages

For example:

“We use only advanced technologies”

Changes to

“You save your time because we use only advanced technologies”

2. In addition, the more specific the benefits are, the stronger they will be.

For example:

We provide the highest quality services

Changes to

“You are protected as a consumer. The quality of our services complies with international quality standards ISO 0889.25 and ISO 0978.18. In addition, each of our services comes with a 2-year warranty.”

3. Explicitly indicate differences

Another effective tactic is to point out differences head-on. However, in this case you also need to be as specific as possible. For example:

“What sets us apart from our competitors is that:

Our bank and its partners have over 5,000 ATMs installed in the city of N, which means you will not experience any problems with withdrawing cash.

Our bank has established partnerships with banks in neighboring countries, which means that you will be able to freely enter adjacent markets.”

☑ HINT: the above example can be strengthened by putting the second part (with benefit) at the beginning, and the property of the bank at the end of the sentence, connecting with the conjunction “because”.

☑ SUMMARY:

So, if you want to convey a company's benefits as a working marketing tool rather than just a hymn, try to make them specific and customer-focused. Avoid empty clichés and describe the benefits, accompanying them with numbers, facts and cases.