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DON'T YOU BELIEVE IT CONSULTING

"We're number 2 - We Try Harder"

You remember the slogan from Avis. It's brilliant marketing, but have you thought about what it means on a day to day basis? Do you really want to spend the rest of your life working harder to achieve only the same as, or less than, your competitors? The fact is, the poor folk at Avis have been trying harder for as long as anyone can remember, and they're still only number 2.

There has to be a better way. There is.

Will Imitation Make you Successful?

That's for you to judge. Do everything the competition does, but try to do it better (while they try hard to outdo you). If you like this as a recipe for market leadership, stop reading now. If on the other hand it strikes you more as a recipe for being average, mediocre or an also-ran, read on for an alternative.

Blue Sky Thinking is Unrealistic, Possibly Dangerous

You could brainstorm. You could swim towards the Blue Oceans, if you like that book. You could try to learn from Google. The problem is, though, you don't start with a clean sheet of paper. You have an established business, a position in the industry, a set of products or services, a team with specific skills.

You need an approach to change which is rooted in reality.

Invisible Creativity is the Answer

Visible creativity - new products, new services, new ways of selling - is very valuable, but it's not the whole story. It suffers from disadvantages. It can be risky. It's very visible, so if it succeeds, it can be easy for your competitors to copy.

Invisible creativity is not about what you do, but how you do it. Most decisions we make in business are based on what we've always done, rules of thumb, or "the way people do that." This is perfectly correct, in fact necessary. There are far too many decisions for us to work each one out from first principles. ButÉ.

From time to time our world changes so that the way we've always done things, or the way everyone does it, is no longer a good guide. This is the secret of invisible creativity - identifying the moment to break the rules, and find the better rule.

Finding the Opportunities

If you are still reading at this point, you'll be starting to wonder how we would apply this to your business.

In outline, this is the process:

• Identify the scope: are we looking at the whole business, or just a particular market, product range or function?
• Understand what's working and what isn't. What do we want more of, and what do we want less of? What can we learn from what's happened recently?
• What are our basic assumptions and rules we use, and which need to be changed?

We will ask questions like:

• What would happen if we abandoned the idea of pricing based on cost? We might double our margins, as one European engineering group did, or be able to charge £1m for 12 days work, as one online information company did;
• What would happen if we abolished the marketing budget and instead instituted a marketing spend investment appraisal process instead? We might stop turning away profitable business, as one accounting firm did.
• What would happen if we changed our view of who was responsible for what? We could resolve a chronic problem and generate £1m cash in 3 months, as one software firm did.

What to Do Next

If you're bored of working harder to stay number 2, or are number 1 and want to keep getting better, book a Strategy Session. This is a free one hour consultation to help you identify the opportunities, and the areas where conventional wisdom is holding you back.

Contact Alastair Dryburgh on +44 20 7812 9674 to book your session.