Do you really understand your company's distinctive advantages?

Understanding, developing and exploiting your company's strengths and competitive advantages is at the heart of any strategy for business growth. Many business leaders, however, do not fully understand how and why their company wins.

During off-site sessions executive teams may brainstorm a list of strengths and competitive advantages. Often these lists are based on "top of the head" thoughts and "gut fee". The teams have few robust facts to support their beliefs and risk building their business strategy on incorrect assumptions.

For example, a UK supermarket chain I worked with needlessly invested in a multi-million pound bonus package. Management held a belief that the quality and enthusiasm of their store teams gave the company a competitive advantage versus other grocers. To underpin this belief the company created a bonus for store managers based on the satisfaction of their store teams.

The problem was that there was no discernible link between staff satisfaction and customer satisfaction for this retailer! Customers were obsessed with speed, convenience and price. Until these areas had been improved, managers were wasting time, money and effort on an irrelevant initiative.

So how do you get beyond the obvious lists of assumed strengths to a deeper understand of what really makes your company succeed? I propose that 5 simple questions can provide you with meaningful insights that will help guide your company's future strategic direction.

Question #1: Which of our products/services are outperforming the market and generating superior returns?

Understanding which product/service categories outperform the market is your first clue as to what makes your company successful. Where are you experiencing high sales and profit growth? Where do you have high market shares, and where are these growing? Where do you have high margins and where are these greater than the market?

Importantly, the areas where you are winning may not necessarily be where your sales are highest! You need to look for unusual and unexpected areas of success, and these may be in some of your smaller business areas.

Question #2: What are the characteristics of these products/services?

The second question enables you to identify common characteristics of your leading product and service categories. Are they new product ranges or old? Do they require high levels of pre/after sales service, or are they self-select? Are they exclusive or freely competed? Are you able to offer a premium price, or have you discounted to the market?

Question #3: Which customers are buying these products/services?

In most cases you will not be winning with all customers, but with certain customer groups. Understanding which customers are driving your growth and profit is critical to understanding what makes you successful. What are the demographic (who are they?) and psychographic (what makes them tick?) characteristics of your buyers?

Question #4: What do we know about the specific reasons these customers buy these products/services from us?

Ideally you will have some reliable customer research, otherwise you need to get as close to the customer as possible. Talking to your sales teams will give you a good indication of the reasons if you probe appropriately.

Importantly, it's not always about price. A recent Harvard Business Review article summarised how a new management team at Fiberite, a mid-sized US composite materials manufacturer, questioned the sales teams to really understand how the business won customers. At first they were told it was about price, but further questioning revealed that delivery lead times and technical support were the real order-winning factors.

Question #5: What are the skills and capabilities that have enabled us to deliver these results?

Once you understand why customers buy from you, it is a short step to identifying your key skills and capabilities. For Fiberite, management quickly realised that technical knowledge, customer support and workflow management were the key capabilities that customers truly valued.

Collating the answers to these 5 questions will give you a useful tool for understanding what makes your company successful. Investing where you are strong and have potential - and, conversely, taking cost and investment out of where you are disadvantaged - is the key to corporate success.

In the Fiberite example, management invested in bringing down delivery times and restoring the company's superior technical support. The company subsequently grew its value threefold in little over two years!

At your next management away day, have your homework prepared. By asking your management teams these 5 questions you will have built up a fact base that reveals your real strengths and distinctive advantages. By following the trail from these insights you can then begin to create a platform for profitable growth.