Competitive edge

Ask a supplier where their competitive edge lies and you will usually hear about the product. Ask their customer and you will hear about something else, or nothing. The method’s definition has two conditions and insists on both. You meet the customer’s needs and add value to their business, measured in their outcomes rather than in satisfaction or goodwill. And the customer sees you as offering better value than the competitors, because value a competitor can easily match is not an edge. It is a baseline.

The two conditions are the axes of the first grid in the Value Edge Diagnostic: adding value to customers across, beating competitors up. Low on both is the Danger Zone, which feels like stability and is creeping irrelevance. High on beating competitors but low on adding value calls for defensive offers. High on adding value but low on beating competitors calls for attacking ones. High on both is Maintain Your Edge, an active sport, not a passive reward. The same two conditions are the cull test in offer ideation: an idea that fails either one is not an offer, whatever the workshop thought of it.