Jaynie Smith on How Do You Define Your Competitive Advantage?

Running Time: 11 minutes 57 seconds 

Canadian Management Centre is pleased to present another podcast in our ongoing Business Intelligence series. The podcast, entitled Competitive Advantage, features special guest Jaynie Smith talking about defining your own competitive advantage.

Companies often confuse what competitive advantage is with what their strengths are. Competitive advantages are those qualities that differentiate and set you apart from the competition. Good customer service, quality, and product/services knowledge are strengths and do not set you apart; they should just be considered givens. So, with the traditional SWOT analysis, most businesses define their competitive advantage by the strengths portion of the quadrant, when in reality, competitive advantage should be a statement about your deliverable that is objective and quantifiable.

Failure to identify competitive advantage can be deadly, as companies have then allowed themselves to become commodity driven, which allows their products/services to become marginalized. That leads them to start to compete on price alone, which can have an impact on the bottom line as prices have to reflect more accurately what your competition is offering.

In addition, sales representatives can make sales easier and more effective as consumers know why theyre buying the product/service other than just the price. It instills confidence in the consumer, which makes it easier for them to make their purchase.

Jaynie L. Smith is the author of Creating Competitive Advantage and president of Smart Advantage, Inc., a marketing/management consultancy whose clients range from mid-sized to Fortune 500 companies. She consults nationally and internationally with CEOs and executives, helping their businesses define competitive advantages.