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Winning In Business
The only alternative to winning in business is...Losing
Our Mission to Help Clients Win
DeltaNet delivers training and coaching services that help
good, solid businesses become winning businesses. We help our
clients identify their winning causes, unite around those causes,
learn more and learn faster about their customers and competitors, and
compete to win, one contest at a time.
We fully expect our clients to become leaders if they aren't,
or to strengthen their position if they are already leaders.
Peter Drucker's Definition of Winning
These quotes are from page 61 in Peter Drucker's 1974 book,
Management. On that single page in his 838 page book, Dr. Drucker
asserted the three conclusions below. We believe they are elemental
and vital to any business:
"To know what a business is we
have to start with its purpose. Its purpose must lie
outside of the business itself. In fact, it must lie in society
since a business enterprise is an organ of society. There is
only one valid definition of business purpose: to create a
customer."
"It is the customer who determines
what a business is. It is the customer alone whose willingness
to pay for a good or for a service converts economic resources
into wealth, things into goods. What the business thinks it
produces is not of first importance."
"Because its purpose is to create
a customer, the business enterprise has two - and only
these two - basic functions: marketing and innovation.
Marketing and innovation produce results; all the rest are
'costs'."
Defining Winning
Billie Jean King's Definition of Winning
We agree 100% with Billie Jean King's definition of winning. She was indeed a winner. She
won the Wimbledon championship 6 times and the US Open championship 4 times in her 15 year
professional tennis career! She must know something about winning.
Attitude counts! When we have seen that rare startup that takes off to become the leader in
its industry, we see a business run by people who not only want to win, they are afraid
they will lose. They aggressively take every opportunity they see to win customers from
their competitors.
Applied to Startups
When we analyze the startups that didn't take off, we see business run
by people who were afraid to win. They shied away from the vital actions required to win
because they seemed too risky. They focused on what they already knew how to do, what
seemed to be the safe path, because the they were confident in their core competencies.
But focusing on what we already know how to do is the polar opposite of planning for new
businesses adopting new technologies, new products, and new ways to do things. Fearing to
create the new paradigms within every new technology adoption cycle is simply fear of
the unknown. And in this case, it is the fear of winning.
Applied to Industry Leaders
When we review the failure patterns of industry-leading companies, we see a similar pattern.
Industry leaders tend to devolve around their high market share businesses — their
Cash Cows in the parlance of the famous BCG study. The people in the failed companies were
afraid to invest in new technologies, new businesses, and new kinds of customers because
that seemed too risky. They focused more and more on what they already knew how to do, what
seemed to be the safe path because the they were confident in their core competencies.
But the sure thing that they unwittingly committed to is those Cash Cows would die one
day. Their fear of winning in new businesses ensured they would fail as their high market
share businesses matured, declined, and died.
Peter Drucker's Definition of Winning
And we agree 100% with Dr. Drucker's definition of winning in business (above). It is
powerful in its simplicity. It is concise, fundamentally sound, and crystal clear. Our
view of Dr. Drucker's definition is depicted below:
You can see Dr. Drucker's three elements boiled down to short phrases.
You can see the fundamental business transaction - the
exchange of products and services for money.
You can see a simplified system containing just two components
- the business and the customer. You can plainly see
that the purpose of the business must lie outside the business.
In the same way, the purpose of this simple system must lie outside
the system.
It seems glaringly simple that the definition of winning must be a
measure of how well the business serves its purpose: to create a
customer. We believe that measure is the degree to which your business
is creating customers compared with your competitors. If your business
is creating customers faster or better than your competitors, you win.
That decision is owned by the customers.
Winning in Business
We believe that winning businesses requires a simple, but vital,
process similar to this:
We like the military analogy. In business, your competitor is
your enemy. The battlefield is the collective mind of the customers.
Winning begins with learning more about your top competitors
than they learn about you, and understanding better how to influence
customers to choose your company and your products instead of those
of your competitors.
Importance of Winning
Consider these questions carefully.
-
How do you know if your business is winning?
-
What does your business need to win consistently?
The alternative to winning
is ... losing! Maintaining the status quo, keeping things the same,
and maintaining your core competencies are not winning options.
Your business climate is not static. Your customers and competitors
are not static. Change is inevitable. If your business is not
driving change, it will be the victim of change. If your business
is not driving change, it's losing to those who are.
Who's Responsible for Winning in Business?
There is no department in your company responsible for winning.
The responsibility for winning in business is divided
at the level immediately below the CEO. This classical organizational feature can
be very easily exploited by your business competitors.
Winning requires a more coordinated effort and commitment
of everyone in the company than your business competitors
have achieved. Winning requires doing a lot of things
well enough, rather than a few things exceptionally well.
Hierarchies are just not good at those things. Business
executives are just not good at those things. Neither are
middle managers or engineers or sales people or any other
functional departments or individuals in a business.
How to Win in Business
Winning requires cross-functional, cross-cultural teams and workgroups operating each
of the 7 networks impacting business success. The teams and workgroups can mount
a coordinated effort across all of the conventional boundaries, the way many successful
startups work.
The teams and workgroups can represent the entire business in the eyes of the customers
and create a sense of commitment to winning that is simply not possible in the hierarchy.
Contact
us to learn more about our beliefs about winning or to explore how we
may help you put these fundamental principles to work in your business.
Home |
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