So, how can you reduce the share of your core market and come out trumps? I have just returned from an excellent leadership meeting in Minneapolis where the Pearson VUE team talked strategy, explored ideas and visioned the future. The level of engagement was as good as I have seen for some time and when I volunteered this one thought to the group, I was met with silence…but only for seconds.
This was my thinking, via an analogy: if your company is in the business of making and selling office chairs, how feasible would it be for you to get into the business of making not just chairs but all office furniture? Can you expand the size of your overall marketplace (and thus reduce your share) and as a result give you more opportunity, more products and more customers to pursue?
What complementary products can you make, are there new or additional services you can offer and equally importantly, how can you utilise technology to get into these spaces? Are you maximising social media and the potential of ecommerce.
How to begin? Just listening to what the market is saying will stand you in good stead – remember only 1% of social is about posting information and 99% is about listening to what the market/your customers/the competition is saying.
Listening on its own should keep you busy enough.