Competitive advantage comes from seeing what nobody else can
A company operates in an ecosystem of opportunities, where competitive advantage can be won by seeing what others are not even aware of.
Common insight models reduce an organization’s ability to take advantage of it’s own unique experience, knowledge and competencies simply because the map we have chosen makes the brutest possible simplifications.
If we make a map of the world that:
Removes all internal expertise and competencies (what makes us unique)
And paints the same picture of the world as everyone else has (including our competition)
then we will make the same decisions as everyone else, offering the customer the same value as everyone else, competing on price or efficiency alone ( a race to the bottom )
How we did it:
There are two paths to getting to the insights leading to competitive advantage.
Is to tap into the expertise already available in the organization. By including the right people in the right way.
The second is to dare to be surprised. To be willing to venture into experiments that we don’t know the answer to.
The best approach is a combination of these two.
In the attached influence map above the internal team sets the map as they think it should be tapping into their own and best insights.