Becoming a Specialist? A hard decision to make ...
 A post on the SAMBA blog suggested the easiest way of differentiating your business is to "specialise." The author suggests that businesses who do only one thing are instantly worth talking about. And perhaps they are. But the examples and the simplicity of this rather crass statement hides a massive strategic decision that has to be taken.
What does it take to specialise? Is it "just doing that one thing?" Is it, as the author suggests, being a pizza parlour that only sells pizzas with anchovies? Far from being a "lazy option", effective specialisation requires a deep understanding of the market segment that is being serviced.
Effective specialisation requires some important strategic decisions to be made. A specialist is, by nature, a business that is recognised in some way as unique. It may produce products that match a highly specific customer need, or have services that are particularly important to a particular industry or customer group. The important thing to remember is a specialist doesn't just do "one thing" - it meets a unique need that is identified and understood by its customer base.
To achieve this the business owner cannot just sit back, declare specialism and wait for business to come in. A specialist needs to shout about its uniqueness, and that requires an investment in marketing that goes beyond dollars. Smart marketing is required, often highly targeted and with a different ROI model to the business chasing a mass market. Those customers with that highly specific need have to be found, and remember these same customers are often adequately serviced by firms with a broader reach.
Which leads to the second quandary that the specialist faces: the cost difference between specialist and generalist increases. Generalists can compromise, extending their services to attract more customers, or trading the quality of their products against what a more general market might tolerate. The volume this creates feeds into economies of scale, driving down prices and making their general products more attractive to customers who might otherwise be drawn to specialist.
If a specialist does start to build a foothold it is relatively easy for a generalist to adjust its marketing strategy or service offering to draw in their market. A simple tweak of a product feature, or an extra emphasis on a service can suddenly shrink a market segment. And as such the specialist must concentrate on building loyalty, on doing whatever they do so much better than their generalist competitors that when the competition start to move in customers don't even notice.
There is also the need to constantly invest in maintaining the specialism. Customer needs will adapt and change as time passes, and so too must the specialist adapt. Skills, knowledge, products, they all have to evolve, which requires a firm commitment to research and development. Without this commitment the specialist will become "out of date" and lose their value to their customers.
A case in point is a friend of mine whose specialism is hair styling for black women. She has a loyal clique of customers who appreciate her ability to work with hair that is naturally "frizzy" (as she describes it). For her customers this is a godsend as general hair dressers can usually make a reasonable job, but she goes that extra mile. And it takes time and effort for her to learn new styles, test new products, research new ways of working with black women's hair and keep ahead of the competition on the high street.
Far from being an "easy way out", becoming a specialist is a key strategic decision. It requires the pursuit of something that is genuinely unique that a specific customer segment will value. It requires commitment to marketing to promote that specialism. It requires commitment to invest in maintain that specialism.
So not a lazy option. In fact one that hides a lot of hard work.
Previously on this blog...
the global leader in Contact Center Consolidation 2.0
2.0 has become a meaningless addition to already poor tag lines.
A dozen beautiful images of Saturn
Wired presents a dozen of the best images from the Cassini mission
Setting up shop in a new country: beyond the website
Building a website for multiple languages is not just about translation. It is a critical business decision that has to be taken carefully.
Why call centre staff deserve your respect
If call centre staff set the first impression for your business, why do we treat them so badly?
Becoming a Specialist? A hard decision to make ...
Specialising requires hard strategic decisions to be made about your business.
When good people move on
Losing a member of staff to another company is not necessarily a bad thing
The quest for quality in Agile Software Development
Why quality assurance remains a central part of project management, regardless of the use of Agile methods
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