Case Study 2 – Implementing Competitive Advantage

How To Become A Leading Competitor In An Industry Market

When the technical software training industry began offering training certifications it opened up opportunities for training companies to provide certified training.  Those companies who owned the training centers had a demand for certified trainers.  This demand was met by individuals and small training brokers, which required training centers to make multiple calls to find a solution.  This inefficiency consumed time that could have otherwise been spent on more productive activities and gave the trainer an unfair advantage in negotiating fees since they would typically have no competition.  No central source of certified trainers existed that could provide a convenient access to the trainers that were available in the market.

Took startup and grew market share to 30% establishing company leadership position as second largest in their market niche nationwide through strategic planning.

Some of the small training brokers in the market aspired to creating a comprehensive database of trainers, but failed due to limited resources.  To become one of the top two competitors a company had to create a database with all, or nearly all, of the independent certified trainers in the market.  Having been able to do that, it positioned the company to become a major competitor.  However, to be successful as a top competitor, a generic business strategy would need to be adopted to claim a defensible position in the market.  The company was especially good at creating high quality marketing materials, systemizing all the business processes to create a consistent level of quality service, producing high quality financial reports on demand, and successfully managing the quality of a team of 21 employees and over 200 active independent contractors.  So the company took the position of differentiation, against one other major competitor who took the overall cost leadership position.  Both companies were taking on a focused strategy on the software certified technical training contract staffing market segment worth about $24 million in annual volume nationwide at the time.  By taking a differentiated position as the high quality provider the company was able to maintain a higher profit margin with favorable contract terms and compete successfully with a slightly larger volume competitor competing on price alone.  No other significant competitors were able to successfully gain traction in our competitive space.

Other Case Studies

1. Case Study 1 – Solving an Industry Problem
2. Case Study 3 – No Exception IRS Audit
3. Case Study 4 – Performance Based Hiring System
4. Case Study 5 – A Killer Lead Generation System
5. Case Study 6 – Avoiding A Cash Flow Disaster
6. Case Study 7 – Saving Money On Insurance Premiums
7. Case Study 8 – Maximizing Customer Satisfaction
8. Case Study 9 – Training New Employees For Less
9. Case Study 10 – Employee Coaching Meetings
10. Case Study 11 – Business Systems Strategy
11. Case Study 12 – Improving Working Relationships
12. Case Study 13 – Increasing Client Conversion Rates
13. Case Study 14 – Delivering on a Promise
14. Case Study 15 – Solving Fatal Problems
15. Case Study 16 – Establishing An Accounting System
16. Case Study 17 – Staying on Top of Mind
17. Case Study 18 – Improving Implementation
18. Case Study 19 – Product Strategy That Sells Customers
19. Case Study 20 – A Quality Production Process