In this era of disruption, technological advancement, and seismic shifts in the way we all do business, doing the same thing as before is rarely a feasible strategy.
We cringe when we hear companies pitch their differentiators as the quality of their people, their customer service, or saying they will outwork the competition. Everybody, at least those who want to stay in business, has good people, necessary customer service, and is willing to work. If everybody has it, it’s not a differentiator. It always begs the question as to whether these businesses think they are truly the only ones.
In some instances, one or more of these may actually be true. Some industries may be notorious for terrible customer service, and therefore you can win business my simply not being a jerk. Even in these situations, the superiority is static. What may be true today may not be the case six months from now. One would hope good customer service is not a significant barrier to entry.
Businesses must always be looking for improvement. Finance capabilities are no exception – reporting, analytics/business intelligence, budgeting, forecasting, scenario analysis, etc. If your top competitor has all these things, who is going to have the upper hand on bidding on that new large customer proposal? This is especially true when new solutions become available for businesses that weren’t available before, like bringing the capabilities of a full finance team to a small business at a fraction of the full team cost #shamelessplug
If those around you are accelerating, staying in neutral is the same as falling behind!
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