Game Changer - Standing Apart from our Competitors

L

Lavania

Hi friends

Just wanted to rake up this topic...wanted an opinion from all the stalwarts here

If best practices can be easily emulated...doing what can actually help us stand apart from our competitors??

Lavania
 
L

lk2012

hi,
I'd say dedication to quality, flawless customer service and innovative product can help. I'm sure others will have lots more to add.
Lil
 
Q

qualitypirate

Customer service and a willingness to take a poke at some of the more impossible jobs said customer dreams up, if you fail, but have kept a constant and informative dialogue with them, they will still be begging to give you their money. Learn their processes, learn their people, learn their corporate culture.
 

Wes Bucey

Prophet of Profit
Hi friends

Just wanted to rake up this topic...wanted an opinion from all the stalwarts here

If best practices can be easily emulated...doing what can actually help us stand apart from our competitors??

Lavania
The major factor is being "customer-centric" (making your customer feel he is not only your "best" customer, but your "only" customer.) I have written about this many times over the years, but a recent post (http://elsmar.com/Forums/showpost.php?p=555956&postcount=5) has an excerpt from one of those old posts - pay close attention to how we made ourselves "partners" instead of just "supplier."
 

Pancho

wikineer
Super Moderator
Hi friends

Just wanted to rake up this topic...wanted an opinion from all the stalwarts here

If best practices can be easily emulated...doing what can actually help us stand apart from our competitors??

Lavania

I think there is one way to create lasting advantage and differentiation from the competition: developing the capability to improve continuously.

Best practices that became "best" through a continuous improvement (CI) process are not easy to emulate. There are just too many details that work together. Even if a competitor copies the visible parts of such practices, the company with the CI capability will already, or soon, be far ahead again.

CI requires discipline to consistently take advantage of opportunities to improve. I think the most important goal of a QMS should be to develop such discipline and then to turn it into the organization's culture. Companies that reach that goal win.
 

John Broomfield

Leader
Super Moderator
Hi friends

Just wanted to rake up this topic...wanted an opinion from all the stalwarts here

If best practices can be easily emulated...doing what can actually help us stand apart from our competitors??

Lavania

Lavania,

By making your customers more successful.

This requires you to deeply understand and share your customers' missions (start with the vital few) and for you to design and execute your products and services to help your customers to fulfill their missions easier and faster.

Sell the full value of your enhanced products and services. Do not discount.

John
 
L

Lavania

I wanted to discuss this topic after reading an article by Michael E Porter on "What is strategy?"

Got wonderful insights from all of you.

Thanks
 

Steve Prevette

Deming Disciple
Leader
Super Moderator
Consider Tom Peters' writings and visit his website - a lot of ideas there for free.

The key point is - although it may be "well known" what "ought" to be done, very few companies appear to be willing to go all the way. Consider that we have peanut company executives in court, who were willing to falsify reports and not even do the bare minimum that should have been done, when it was "well known" how to safely process peanuts.
 
L

Lavania

People know what they have to do ....they realise what they should be doing to grow is sth different and they end up doing nothing...hahaha:)

I shall surely go through the article Steve.

That was a very different thought to it.

Regards
Lavania
 

Big Jim

Admin
Simply applying the principles of ISO 9001 can be a game changer. They are, after all, a collection of best practices.

Largely based on two main themes, shipping quality products (no defects) and continual improvement, I have seen companies that have caught the vision and embraced what ISO 9001 can do for them move from not knowing their on-time delivery results (when finally first measured found to be below 40%), not knowing their level of customer satisfaction, and making a poor attempt at controlling product quality, move to having stellar results on all three of those indicators, and to their surprise, discovering that life actually got easier in the process because they gained the tools to resolve problems in a more permanent manner.

Before, they believed that to survive that they had to tell their customers whatever they wanted to hear to survive, and then worry about how and when to fill the order. They felt they had no choice. They had no idea what their lead time was, and didn't involve their engineers or buyers until they had an order. They were flying blind, not knowing their shop capacity, shop load, not knowing how to determine lead times, and not knowing ahead of time how they might make the products or what supplier lead times they may encounter. Indeed, they made only a feeble attempt to quote lead time, only accept whatever the customer requested.

It is a thing of beauty when they get their act together.
 
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