Chief Product Team 
What are the three product competitive strategies? This post explores the three product competitive strategies from a marketing perspective.
The three major product strategies are operational excellence, customer intimacy, and product leadership. Continue reading to know more about the topic.
Product Competitive Strategies or Value Disciplines—What Are They?
Think about this for a moment. In every product project, you can ask yourself the following question: “What’s the goal of this product?
Product management begins with defining the product. And this includes its features and the benefits. The product manager then defines how to deliver those features and benefits in a cost-effective and timely manner.
Then, this is where the production process itself comes into play. Finally, once the product is delivered, it’s up to marketing to communicate to customers why they should buy it.
The process of managing all of these elements so they work together as a cohesive unit is called product management. A focus on product management can provide a competitive advantage to companies that recognize its importance and actively pursue it.
Product management has become a key discipline in today’s competitive business environment.
Without a good product manager, the development process becomes chaotic. As such, a good product manager must understand how each stage of this process affects overall strategic goals and objectives.
3 Product Competitive Strategies
Operational excellence
Let’s face it. Everyone knows that operational excellence is the toughest of the three competitive strategies to pull off. But it’s also the smartest.
Product leadership
Product leadership takes a product to market with a focus on only those features and benefits that you know will resonate with your customers.
Then, once you’re in the market, you refine and enhance as necessary.
Customer intimacy
The goal of customer intimacy is to develop and deliver products that meet the unique needs of individual customers.
This is often a more difficult strategy because it requires companies to truly know their customers.
How Do You Know Which Competitive Strategy Is Right for Your Product?
In order to decide which strategy will work best for your product, start by looking at the high-level business goals that you have set for your organization.
Next, think about how your product contributes to overall business objectives.
For example, does your product help achieve market penetration or gain a competitive advantage? Or else, does your product help you sustain your business or maintain a competitive advantage?
In addition, think about what your customers want.
For example, in order to gain a competitive advantage, do your customers want your product to be something that they can’t get anywhere else? If so, then a customer intimacy strategy may work best.
But if your product is just one of many similar products that are available to customers, a product leadership strategy might be the way to go.
The Bottom Line
Regardless of which strategy you choose for your product, make sure that it aligns with business goals and objectives. In addition, make sure it resonates with potential customers and addresses their needs.
What do you think?
What other strategies have you used to develop a product? What strategies have you seen work well for your company? Feel free to leave a comment below with your thoughts.
