The New World of Work Differentiators

1 of Many. Every Friday. 1000h.

The Story So far:
To build market share, to defend price, to ensure longevity of our organisation, we must be distinct, we must be different ('be distinct or extinct'). But in the New World of Work that is increasingly difficult to do. Globalisation, speed of change and technology drivers amongst other factors rapidly remove our advantages. But some organisations have managed to do it and continue to manage to do it: Starbucks is oft-quoted of course. In the UK the John Lewis organisation. Apple. Harley-Davidson. Many small web-based businesses who do a great job.
"If there is nothing very special about your work, no matter how hard you apply yourself you won't get noticed, and that increasingly means you won't get paid much either."---Michael Goldhaber, Wired Magazine
What makes their businesses successful and sustainable? The new differentiators. Many of the differentiators they use are surprisingly 'soft'. That is, they are tricky to define and to measure: they are intangible. In coming weeks we will explore them and understand how we can replicate the methodology.

New World of Work Differentiators 1: Design (Week 1 of 2). Week 1: the concept.
We, the consumer, increasingly seek well-designed products and services. We expect:
Forms to be easy to fill out.
Web-sites to be intelligent and easy to navigate.
Technology to be easy to use.
Phone-lines to be easy to navigate.
Stores to be well sign-posted.

Otherwise you lose us and rapidly.

When good design is coupled with aesthetic appeal, we tend to refer to this as cool. The Apple iPod. The Starbucks Café. The Audi showroom. The Amazon 1-click facility.
Increasingly, whatever you provide must be well-designed for your audience and sufficiently ‘cool’ to appeal. How do we do that? See you next week.