Microsoft: “Empower people through great software, anytime, anyplace, on any device.”

BMW: “Relentless pursuit of perfection.”

Midwest Express: “Best care in the air.”

Charles Schwab: “Provide customers with the most useful and ethical financial services in the world.”

Container Stores: “Better customers’ lives by giving them more time and space.”

Some other well-known organizations and the strategies that are catapulting them into high levels of success are as follows (stated in my words not theirs).

Starbucks: A refuge of class and comfort.

Southwest Airlines: Fun, fast, no frills flying.

Wal-Mart: Give ordinary people the chance to buy the same things as rich people.

Disney: Create happiness by providing the finest in entertainment for people of all ages, everywhere.

These core strategies really define the organizations. They are also based on some common characteristics.

• They are simply, clearly stated so everyone in the organization can understand them.


• They are based on meeting a customer need. Products change but customer needs endure.


• The strategies focus on underserved market needs (at least initially).


• They focus on serving in a spectacular manner, not just a ‘me-too’ approach.


• The companies focus on this core strategy. No distractions allowed.


• They include a unique selling position (USP) that differentiates them from the competition in the eyes of the customer.


• They provide a customer value proposition that is real. The customer clearly sees and agrees with the value offered.

In the classic management book “Good to Great” by Jim Collins, he emphasizes based upon his extensive research that the eleven great companies he discovered all utilized what he called a hedgehog strategy approach to success. This term is developed from Aesop’s famous observation: “The fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one great thing.” To Americanize it, I call this the ‘porcupine principle.” I believe that such a strategy is made up of four primary components. What do we have a passion to do, what can we take pride in (be best in class), what can be profitable for us, and what do we have the people to accomplish. Where these four intersect is the extraordinary organizations sweet spot where it can repeatedly hit home runs. What Collins found was that the great companies usually did not exist in great markets. Walgreen’s revolutionized the pharmacy/drug store market and Wal-Mart has undeniably conquered the retail market. They focus relentlessly on their market and on their strategy. Walgreens to be the most convenient drug store. They innovated the drive up window to pick up your called in or emailed prescriptions, they put the first photo mats into their drug stores. They are always looking for the best location, and reputedly will close down a successful store to move a few blocks for an even more convenient location for their customers. Wal-Mart of course is relentless on efficient distribution and tight short-cycle inventory control, using these two tools to keep their prices down below competitor’s levels.

Earlier we mentioned two airlines that have been highly successful even as the airline industry itself has spun disastrously out of control. Southwest has stuck to its fun, fast no-frills flying approach. It’s reputation as an airline that is reliable, safe, and fun is intact and has let it continue as the one airline that is consistently profitable. Midwest Express continues to astound people with a high level of service at a competitive price. They have stuck with their focused strategy and it has carried them through tough times.

Obviously just having a strategy written down does not succeed no matter how differentiated it may be. It comes down to execution. Ultimately the organization needs to implement a value delivery system that delivers what is promised by the strategy. Every organization should undergo a procedure I call process road mapping of their value delivery system. Starting with the customer, outline the workflow and operations from the first contact to actual delivery of the product or service. Keep it simple using boxes for each process or operation and directional arrows for flow. What are the customer’s expectations or service requirements (often called process intent) as far as response time, higher quality, lower costs, reduced cycle time, etc.? Not what will they accept, but what do they want? Where are the bottlenecks, disconnects, quality problems, etc. coming in? Most organizations are shocked to find they can initially get very little agreement on what their value delivery system process road map looks like, or even what the real customer expectations or service requirements are or should be!

Don’t assume without asking that you know what the customer wants. Burger King for years couldn’t understand why their better tasting food (as determined by independent taste tests) still kept getting trounced by their golden arch competitor. It ends up people weren’t coming to fast food places for better tasting food but for quick service at economical costs. Don’t assume, find out what your customer’s service requirements really are!

Once the process roadmap of the value delivery system has been developed the real work can begin! How can we set goals and implement improvements to make sure our value delivery system is delivering what we promise? The extraordinary organizations are constantly transforming themselves by improving their value delivery systems to meet or exceed customer’s expectations. How can we develop and communicate a unique selling position that creates real value for our customers? This makes their organization a real selling machine. Every employee can agree on what the value delivery system looks like, what the service requirements are from the customer, how you uniquely go about offering these services or products, and why the customer values them. Then in extraordinary organizations every employee commits themselves to being engaged in continuously improving the service or product and can say what they are contributing to the effort.

Do you have a simply stated strategy that delivers real value to the customer? Are you passionate about it, making a profit from it, and best in class on it? Extraordinary organizations ask themselves these questions everyday and strive to keep their people engaged in delivering value to the customers.

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