One of my favorite business books is Different: Escaping the Competitive Herd by Youngme Moon. Given the work I do, I love nothing more than a well-constructed story on breaking away from the pack. Dr. Moon makes a compelling case of what should be obvious — yet isn't — to many of my clients.

Too many organizations are unable to distinguish between the aspects of their offering that make them unique versus those that are “pay to play.” In technology markets, where it’s hard to keep up, much less separate from upstarts, understanding where to place limited resources for meaningful competitive advantage is key. Knowing what is “pay to play” (or must-haves) versus “nice-to-have” versus a "differentiator” is job one of any company strategy. To make these investment trade-offs, you need to know what your target customers value and how they compare yours to other options. It sounds heretic, but it may even be that letting some aspects of your offering slip is ok.

My most recent client claimed differentiation around cost savings, better customer experience, and easy implementation. Problem was that virtually every other company in their space was saying the same thing. It took a lot of convincing on my part to get them off this “differentiation” platform and onto a new one. It turned out that customers cared a lot less about cost savings than my client assumed. By investing in a higher end platform which was admittedly higher cost, they were able to meet the needs of a highly profitable customer segment. And by understanding that "better customer experience” was a “pay to play” feature, they were able to highlight another element of their offering as part of their breakaway strategy.

My recommendation: read the book, be meaningfully different and feel free to reach out.

—Annarosa Tomasi