Devoted to Managers and those that seek to improve their management skills

We've been talking about managers and business leaders fighting the commoditization of their company or divisions. I came across an excellent article from the hotel industry on making resolutions for their internet strategies called "Hotelier’s 2007 Top Ten Internet Marketing Resolutions."

One of the resulutions the writers called for was the development of a strategy to de-commoditize for the sake of offering great value to their customers. They encouraged their readers to battle to ensure that their products and services wouldn't continually turn into commodities.

* The first thing is to realize that this is a thing that does need to be fought against as people always tend to lean this way and to embrace the familiar and easy way of doing things.

* Another interesting thought they added was to watch out how third-party intermediaries impact your company. Many of them provide the same answers to the same problems in the same industry. You can become a commodity company quickly if you don't watch this carefully.

I remember when vendors came in to "help" out some big retail box stores I was working with. They'd have their planegrams with them grumble about how much of it wasn't in the place that it should be in the store. From the position of the store, I liked that. To blindly follow the way someone thinks the products in a store should be positioned would be just plain stupid.

Now someone that is new to a business may need something like that to get them started. But any mature store or business should know what works best for them based upon experience and interaction with their customers.

* There was also revealed the importance of understanding what it is unique in your company and certain segments of the people you serve, and creating products or services geared toward those customers based upon what that uniqueness is.

* Last, there was a strong emphasis on thinking of ways you can customize and personalize the experience of the consumer that would create a strong differentiation from their competitors and unique value to them.

Some great ways to continually battle the disaster that becoming a commodity company brings.