Page 127 - MYM 2015

2. The Customer Foresight Discipline
This second customer discipline relates to a company’s ability to obtain new customers pro tably and anticipate future needs. Your company’s ability to attract new customers is based on its customer foresight and its willingness and ability to embrace new ways of providing service. Will it lead the market by launching new services before customers recognize their own changing needs? The questions you should ask include:
Does the company gather information on potential customers? Does it target them based on its opportunity for competitive advantage? Does it understand and invest in meeting future needs of prospective customers? Does it understand and act on needs that customers’ can’t express?
Starbucks coffee shops have built their reputation, in the US and around the world, by developing personal relationships with their customers so that they know them as individuals. But one of their keys to success has been to engage customers directly in helping them improve their services and provide innovative ideas that will lead to new products and services that will satisfy their future needs. As a result Starbucks has redefined the customer retail experience for its customers and introduced Mobile order and pay for consumers.
3. The Competitor Insight Discipline
Your company’s understanding of its customers’ alternatives is crucial to its ability to compete. Competitor insight is re ected in workforce behaviors and prevalent activities that give the company a deep and dynamic understanding of its current competitors. Without these strong drivers, the company cannot stay in touch with its competitors’ strategies and is
in danger of losing market share and pro tability. The questions you should ask include:
Does the company monitor, understand, and respond to its competitors’ strengths and weak- nesses? Does it factor competitors’ current strate- gies into its own strategies? Do staff members understand how they contribute to the rm’s cur- rent value proposition and competitive advantage, and do they act to support it?
Amazon.com is so confident of its value proposition that it provides its customers with competitors’ alternatives, frequently offered at lower prices for the same product. Why? Because
it knows that consumers want a choice. So it offers that, confident in the knowledge that customers trust Amazon as the first place to go to buy online.
4. The Competitor Foresight Discipline
Competitor foresight relates to a company’s ability to foresee new competitors that could impact its markets in the future. New innovative competitors have an impact on uncovering latent needs of customers and influencing their perception of their future needs. The questions you should ask include:
Does the company consider potential competi- tors when making decisions about customers? Does it identify market shifts in order to foresee potential competitors? Do staff members contribute to competitive intelligence relating to potential new competitors and how they might affect future customer needs?
Apple has been able to pre-empt competitive changes in its markets by re-shaping industries through its innovative new products – iPod, iPhone, iPad and now its Apple watch. Also its Apple shops give it direct access to end customers and provides an enduring competitive advantage.
5. The Peripheral Vision Discipline
Peripheral Vision re ected in workforce behaviors
and prevalent activities gives the company a deep
and dynamic understanding of its broader external environment. Without these strong drivers, the company will miss opportunities and risk the loss of customers due to market and industry shifts. Changes in technology, economic conditions, government policies, and society all impact current and future customer needs. The questions you should ask include:
Does the company monitor, understand, and respond to the political, economic, social, technological,
and natural environment trends emerging on the periphery that could affect its customers and its busi- ness? Are all staff members encouraged to scan their respective elds of expertise for new ideas relevant to the changing external environment? Does the company act on this ow of new ideas?
The Apple iPod has revolutionized the music industry. Nike, the sports footwear company, faced a challenge at that time that it only came into the consciousness of its
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