Is your company's growth rate at or below your industry's growth rate?
Is your annual growth rate greater then your industry's growth rate?
How much time do you spend focusing on your products and services?
Are your product/service initiatives focused on increasing your productivity?
Are your product/service initiatives focused on maintaining your current revenue levels or getting you incremental revenue growth?
Are your product/service initiatives focused on outcomes that will grow market share and reach annual growth rates exceeding your industry's growth rate?
Most companies will find 90% of their product/service initiatives are focused on streamlining and improving their margins or maintaining revenue and at best attaining incremental revenue gains. This is especially true as industry and product life cycles reach the maturing stage of development.
The key is to fight the urge to do what everyone else is doing and shift some focus and $$ to product/service initiatives that will help build your market share. When this is done successfully, your rate of growth will exceed that of your industry's growth rate.
Consider where your competitors are focused. How does that compare to where you are focused? Ask yourself the following product/service questions about your competitors and your own company.
- Is the focus on adding additional features to existing products?
- Is the focus on finding new ways to bundle/package and price our current products?
- Are there creative approaches to bundling products/services that are outside our types of products that would motivate prospects to buy our products/services if they were bundled together?
- Are products/services being offered to address needs of specific customer segments?
As industry and company products/services mature, you will find there is a strong focus on adding additional features to existing products or finding new ways to bundle and price current products/services.
Shift some of your focus to strategies and initiatives that will find products/services outside your product category that your prospects and customers have a high need for and bundle them with your products.
Also spend time identifying specific customer segments for your products/services. Get clarity on their unmet needs and how you can offer personalized solutions that specifically meet the segment's needs.
Continually finding ways to differentiate your company's products/services is critical at all times. Even more so when your industry and company products/services have reached the mature phase of the product/service life cycle.
Ensure you have the right product/service strategy systems in place. Your products & services ARE your company. Product planning and development is something that needs to be done on a consistent ongoing basis. Without this, your strategy will default to reacting to your competitors. Get clarity on your product path to the future. Put your competitors in the position of reacting to what you are doing.
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