“Director, Differentiation Strategy” is a title at Boeing
November 19th, 2007
Randy Baseler, CEO of Boeing and noted CEO blogger writes: “My colleague Blake Emery, who has the unique title of Director, Differentiation Strategy…”
What a great idea. A person whose sole focus is to differentiate the brand, the products and the services from competitors. It’s explicit, it’s on the agenda. I understand that on the average payroll there may not be room for a “Director of Differentiation” but there is still something really valuable in the idea.
Maybe rather than having a Director of Differentiation, you could have a loose team of people consisting of customer service, sales, product, services, operations, finance and marketing.
Marketing might take the initiative, but you rotate the chair between the participants to ensure everyone is engaged and committed. The agenda is clear from the start: “what can we do, what do we need to do, to improve our differentiation.”
Many marketing thinkers now believe that marketing success in the future will rely more on “baking in” the interest, i.e. doing things that are of interest to your customers. (see Mark Earls post here and my follow up here)
In my post I wondered aloud about how to get this type of new thinking implemented under the pressure of delivering day-to-day results. If you believe that this is the way of the future for marketing and branding, then maybe a Differentiation Task Force is a great first step.
November 21st, 2007 at 1:01 am
David,
Interesting concept about being a Director, Differentiation Strategy. Tradionally such responsibility was given to the marketing manager. Personally, I agree one can take the idea further and create an entire team of ‘power thinkers’ to focus on differentiation. I run an industrial supply directory and the competition is fierce with several larger competitors, separating ourselves from their service in a unique manner is our biggest competitive advantage.
November 21st, 2007 at 6:38 am
Hi Mark, you know, I wonder how often the Marketing Manager is actually charged with this. I bet that in many instances their charter is more around promotion and sales than the product, service or delivery. Which is a shame of course. So how do you achieve this differentiation from your competitors?
November 27th, 2008 at 10:57 am
It’s about valuable content that speaks to different types of buyers (technical, business, company, individual) on the level - with a genuine voice and as a peer. The company’s groundswell is a great place to start the conversation. Putting together a cross-team of folks from operations, engineering, customer support, product, strategy, etc. who are on the front lines, who deal with customers on a regular basis. What makes you different is what you know and how you do it - the people. Team with them. I know, easier said than done.
November 27th, 2008 at 11:14 am
Thanks for stopping by Valeria; it’s so easy for people to be focused on “their job”, their silo rather than wanting to participate in something that is good for the business, but doesn’t relate directly to their performance measures. The obvious thing to do would be for the company leadership to make it one of the measures.