Strategic Differentiation Quotes

Competition is overrated. In practice it is quite destructive and should be avoided wherever possible. Much better than fighting for scraps in existing markets is to create and own new ones.

Competitive strategy is about being different. It means deliberately choosing a different set of activities to deliver a unique mix of value.

That's what makes great products. It's not process-it's content.

Strategy is about setting yourself apart from the competition. It's not a matter of being better at what you do - it's a matter of being different at what you do.

To be successful, innovation is not just about value creation, but value capture.

Innovation keeps me ahead of my competition. It means that my foes must adapt to me, not the other way around.

Competition is. In every business, no matter how small or how large, someone is just around the corner forever trying to steal your ideas and build his success out of your imagination, struggling after that which you have toiled endless years to secure, striving to outdo you in each and every way. If such a competitor would work as hard to originate as he does to copy, he would much more quickly gain success.

If all you're trying to do is essentially the same thing as your rivals, then it's unlikely that you'll be very successful.

You want to look at what other companies are doing. It's very important not to be hermetically sealed. But you don't want to look at it as if, 'OK, we're going to copy that.' You want to look at it and say, 'That's very interesting. What can we be inspired to do as a result of that?' And then put your own unique twist on it.

To escape the curse of commoditization, a company has to be a game-changer, and that requires employees who are proactive, inventive and zealous.

In business we often find that the winning system goes almost ridiculously far in maximizing and or minimizing one or a few variables - like the discount warehouses of Costco.

If you are seizing on a new business opportunity, deliberately move your customers' expectations up a few notches and consistently over-deliver on your promises - you will leave your competitors struggling to catch up.

You gain converts by winning at something the existing provider didn't think was so important.

A strategy delineates a territory in which a company seeks to be unique.

France needs to find something that makes it stand out. It's not enough for it to do almost as well as its neighbors.

I believe in a company that combines service and product offerings which are a bit different from other industries.

If you want to be around in 10 years you've got to do something to differentiate yourself from the pack.

Any corporate policy and plan which is typical of the industry is doomed to mediocrity. Where this is not so, it should be possible to demonstrate that all other competitors are at a distinct disadvantage.

You can create value with breakthrough innovation, incremental refinement, or complex coordination. Great companies often do two of these. The very best companies do all three.

An organization's strategy is simply its plan for success. It's nothing more than the collection of intentional decisions a company makes to give itself the best chance to thrive and differentiate from competitors.

You're offering a great service. People are tuning in. So continue to find great people, continue to do what you're doing. And do it better than your rivals. I know that's easier said than done.

Now if you go exactly where your competitors are, you're dead.

The essential element of successful strategy is that it derives its success from the differences between competitors with a consequent difference in their behavior.

The end and object of conquest is to avoid doing the same thing as the conquered.

I thought, 'Okay, what's going to be my edge, and how am I going to define what I'm doing differently?' Once I had that key idea of the software developer as an artist, once I had that idea, a whole bunch of other ideas flowed from that, because I realized that I need to go study the music industry, I need to study the book publishing and Hollywood and figure out how they do things, why they do them that way, and then I need to borrow, and rearrange, the things that they're doing to fit my industry so that I can invent and create this new industry.