Tool Box
Issue No. 12 - August/September 2003
Sustainable Advantage — Does it Exist?
How to Boost Your Tendering Results
by Adrian de Brenni
What will really differentiate your offers from those of your competitors? How do you get a competitive advantage? What will make your customer choose your offer – your proposal or bid? How do you maintain an advantage?
The answer to these questions lies in understanding your customer and responding to what really drives their decisions – their higher values, their emotions. This has probably always been the case; however, in the past, companies also achieved advantage through other means. Many years ago it was from proximity to raw materials, ore, oil, water and the like. With the emergence of free markets and advances in transportation, geography no longer provided advantage. Technology then made the difference. The leaders in manufacturing, electronics, communications and computing technologies could gain more and more business. But technology and new products can be copied, imitated and replaced by other innovations and the organisations with the structures and management that made them more efficient and effective could then offer products and services at better prices to customers. This advantage was also short lived because the best management practices, business tools and processes are shopped around relentlessly by various companies and consultants. Is there really anything called sustainable competitive advantage?
Your raw materials, technology, organisation structure and management practices must be as good as your competitors and in most bids the main respondents will achieve parity on these items. This will be a benchmark, an entry point for you to be considered, and it may be at a very high standard. You have no choice but to reach this benchmark and then you must find an advantage. It’s becoming tougher to achieve this from technology or in technical solutions. And you can always team up with other companies to fill gaps in your product or technical solutions. There is no room for complacency when it comes to achieving the benchma...
