Um exemplo de decomoditização

"The software companies told clients that all of their authorized training companies were the same, like going to McDonald’s. Thus, prospects didn’t buy the better arguments. They bought low price. Why shouldn’t they? In the absence of differentiation, price is the ultimate decision factor. [Moi ici: Por isso é que empresas que pensam à frente apostam na concorrência imperfeita, para fugir do preço!] Yet, the task put in front of me was to build a sales force that could sell our courses at a premium price.
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While we were passionate that our training was superior, we could not prove it. The classroom was a commodity, but there was still an opportunity to differentiate ourselves and sell at higher prices.
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We learned that IT managers had several challenges. [Moi ici: O truque é deixar de pensar que se vende um produto. Qual é o JTBD? O que procuram e valorizam? Que dores sofrem?] First, when an IT manager needed to send an employee for a training course, he needed to get three to five signature approvals on the purchase order. It was the same repeated process for each employee for each course. It was a bureaucratic pain. [Moi ici: Uma dor!]
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Second, there were a significant number of class attendees who, upon taking the course, realized that the course was not right for them or vice versa. This meant the training dollars were lost, as was the time the employee missed at work to take the course. [Moi ici: Medos, obstáculos!]
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Finally, because of the demand for trained IT professionals, IT managers feared their trained employees would leave the company.[Moi ici: Medos, obstáculos!]
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Given those three issues, we developed a sales strategy based on making it easier for IT managers to get the right training for their employees.
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We introduced the idea of using a blanket purchase order for their training budget. Our training company billed against the blanket purchase order as employees enrolled in the courses.
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Before any employee was enrolled in a course, one of our education advisors interviewed the prospective student to make sure it was the training he needed and he had the background to succeed in it.
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Finally, we offered a replacement guarantee. If an employee we trained left his or her company within a year of completing a course, we trained the new person free of charge.
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As a result of this differentiation strategy, we became the largest, most profitable training company for Microsoft, Novell and IBM/Lotus. We sold our courses at 30 to 50 percent higher prices than our competitors. Because we had the blanket purchase order for the entire training budget, our competitors were locked out of these accounts.
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While our competitors argued “better,” we positioned “different.” Differentiate yourself by solving the problems your buyers face rather than trying to differentiate commodities."

Como é que a sua empresa lida com as situações de comoditização?

"How to Achieve Differentiation When Selling a Commodity – by Lee Salz"