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26 of 26 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Keen Insights into the Shifting Needs of Consumers!, June 28, 2001
Summary: Think of this book as an update of The Discipline of Market Leaders as applied to consumer products and services companies. The conclusions are based on a suvey of 5000 consumers and reveal deep discontent with the many manipulative practices that companies use. The authors identify the key dimensions of any consumer products or services company as being defined by price, product, access, service, and experience. The key lesson is to pick one area to outperform everyone else, one area to be a strength, and not to fall below industry par everywhere else. Almost all consumer companies will benefit from reexamining their business models and execution in light of this book's content.Review: Seldom is a new way of thinking about business models tied to end-user research. That rare linking adds both depth and breadth to the content of The Myth of Excellence. The methodology was a powerful one. Find out from consumers who they like, and why they like them. Take the results, and analyze them for their potential business model choice implications and to spot weaknesses in implementation. If you are like me, you will find some of these dimensions to be a little different than the way you usually think about business models. That's good, because it will stretch your thinking. In particular, the concept of access will be new. The idea is to make it easier to get a broader range of offerings. Think of this as being like a concierge who gets things for you at a fine hotel. You don't know the area, or where the best choices are. The concierge shares that knowledge, and your stay is improved. What hit me most powerfully in this book were the quotes about how angry consumers are about mixed messages out there. For example, many stores say you can take things back . . . but most make the experience of returning items so unpleasant that no one would go back. Or a company may advertise how friendly its stores are, and have large signs about writing personal checks that make it clear that they think the customers are potential fraud artists. A company may promote having low prices, and then raise them by 20 percent connected to giving away something for free that is less valuable. Those examples show hypocritical behavior as well as lack of respect for customers. They think we are very stupid and subservient. Well, your purchases may just go to someone else. These observations were tied to the concept of there being three levels of business relationship: acceptable, preferred, and trusted. The book's point is that the most successful will be trusted based on their outstanding performance in one dimension, strength in another, and dependable performance in everything else. We are all busy and distracted. We need trusted companies who will look out for our interests, so we can spend the time we would normally use checking up on them doing something more urgent and important . . . like be with our children. These examples are also helpfully tied down by many examples of businesses that you know, and new examples from Europe and small companies in the United States that you will not know. I thought the examples were very interesting, and look forward to trying the services and products of these new companies to me like Superquinn in Ireland and Circles in Boston. There is a sort of half science fiction, half tongue-in-cheek section at the end of the book that projects where these levels of performance could be many years in the future. You'll have a good laugh here. The only weakness I saw in the book is the lack of a serious take on how rapidly new elements of consumer business models might emerge, and how rapidly competition will require companies to be excellent in outperforming others in more business model elements. My own research suggests that the standard described in this book will probably be obsolete in the near future. For those who fall well below this standard now, the book will be a superb resource. For those who are at the top of their industry's game, the book will not be as helpful. After you finish thinking about this fine work, I suggest that you spend time every week being an anonymous customer of your own company. Buy and use the competitors' products and services as well. Then ask yourself: How are you doing today? Extend effectively beyond the best . . . always!
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28 of 31 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
THE ULTIMATE GUIDE TO PROFITABILITY, June 29, 2001
As a counsellor and teacher in business management for thirty years, and having completed diagnostic assessments on large and small businesses, locally, nationally and internationally, my opinion of "The Myth of Excellence" comes from first-hand knowledge and experience.The authors have broken down the key areas of marketing into five basic components: access, experience, price, product and service. For the reasons the book identifies, it is extremely difficult, if not impossible, to "be the best" in all these areas. Based on case studies and interviews with over 10,000 consumers, it has become evident that the consumer is no longer impressed by a company's catching promotional messages or "world class performance." Today's consumer places little value in cliches that say little and promise nothing. What they do want, and have every right to expect in addition to value for their dollar, is efficient service, honesty, trust, recognition and fairness. From customer service reps through the ranks to CEO's, consumers want someone to listen to them and follow through with prompt, efficient action. One huge mistake often make by companies, both large and small, is the complacent attitude of managers/owner who believe, "since doors of my business are open, the customer will come." As the authors point out, many businesses are run by inept management who do not listen to Mr. or Ms. Public's concerns or messages, nor, quite frankly, do they care what they have to say. Successful companies who make it to the top in the corporate world, and continue to grow, have already learned an important lesson: if they want to increase sales, minimize costs and increase bottom-line profitability, they better pay very close attention to what the customer is telling them. While many businesses believe they are "successful" for no other reason than the doors remain open and the financials indicate a slight profit, a vast majority of businesses lack sufficient management skills (which includes marketing)to make the business grow to the point where it achieves maximum profitability. Very simply put, they learn to make all the mistakes in the book on their own money - profit goes out the door...along with the customer! The authors of this book have certainly done their homework on this book. It is well-written, clearly understood, and based on sound, reliable research. "The Myth of Excellence" is highly recommended reading to any and every individual in the world of business today.
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10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Separating Myths from Realities, July 5, 2001
In The Discipline of Market Leaders, Treacy and Wiersema assert that "no company can succeed today by trying to be all things to all people. It must instead find the unique value that it alone can deliver to a chosen market. Why and how this is done are the two key questions the book addresses." The authors focus with rigor and precision on three different "disciplines": operational excellence, product leadership, and customer intimacy. Obviously, the most successful companies are those which excel in all three disciplines. However, each places primary emphasis on only one. I mention all this by way of suggesting that Crawford and Matthews take a comparable position in their brilliant analysis of the reasons why "great companies never try to be the best at everything." Hence the appropriateness of their book's title. In the Preface, they note that "across the globe and across all industries, businesses are spending billions of dollars sending poorly aimed -- and in some cases offensive -- messages to their customers and leaving literally billions of dollars on the table each day. Instead of talking to customers in a language they can understand and find meaningful, most businesses are actually demonstrating -- through advertising, marketing, merchandising, product assortment and selection, transactional terms, and service levels -- that they don't respect or even know whom they are doing business with." In essence, that is the problem to be solved. Crawford and Matthews offer a number of specific strategies and tactics in response to the question "How?" They organize their material within ten chapters: Field Notes from the Commercial Wilderness, The New Model for Consumer Relevancy, Would I Lie to You? ("The Overrated Importance of Lowest Price"), I Can't Get No Satisfaction ("Service with a Smile?"), I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For ("Access, Physical and Psychological"), Why "Good" Is Good Enough ("Issues of Product Bandwidth"), Do You Really Like Me? ("The Experience Factor"), Making Consumer Relevancy Work, Supply-Chain Realities, and finally,m Consumer Relevancy and the Future. The concept of Consumer Relevancy is central to everything Crawford and Matthews share in abundance and with eloquence. The attributes of Consumer Relevancy (i.e. price, service, access, product, and experience) have remained constant for centuries "and are "somehow inherently integral to the way people go about commerce" and indeed, according to the authors, the five attributes "emerge as almost preconditions to commercial relationships." In the final chapter, they assert that "the real business advantage will fall to to those companies that not only hear [the consumer's voice] but also listen to it and shape their offerings accordingly. And based on what we've found in our work on Consumer Relevancy, that's something much easier said than done." Crawford and Matthews conducted research which involved more than 5,000 consumers. They were surprised by what that collective "voice" had to say. For example, 64% said that an "honest, consistent" price was more important to them than getting the lowest possible price, 73% rated "respect and courtesy" as the being most important to them in a satisfactory commercial experience, and 69% defined "superior" service as the ability to return products unconditionally..."the acid test" of whether or not a company really stands behind what it sells. Many of the book's most important value-added benefits are derived from the "Self-Diagnostic" exercises (Price, Service, Access, Product, and Experience). Also from the "Formula for Success" summaries of key points developed within rigorous analyses of companies such as Dollar General, Superquinn, Circles, Record Time, Southwest Airlines, Campbell Bewley Group, and Gourmet Garage. And also from various Tables such as 2.1 ("Hierarchy of Interaction" which suggests what customers are really saying about how they want to interact with companies) and 10.2 ("The Transformation of Symbols, Meanings, and Conventional Practices -- from the Industrial to Post Information Ages"). I commend the authors on how well they write as well as how clearly they think. I also commend them for what I consider to be a unique quality of humility. Even with all of the research data at their disposal, they resist the temptation to say (in effect) "this is the consumer's voice which is telling you precisely how to conduct your business." They effectively challenge certain myths about excellence without replacing them with others. Occasionally I read a book which can serve as the foundation of a workshop I can conduct for my corporate clients. Here's how it works. Key executives are required to read a given book such as this one in advance, then gather (preferably offsite) for at least a full day. The book's Table of Contents serves as the agenda. Each participant is required to challenge the book's core assumptions, then to suggest which combination of assertions and suggestions is most appropriate to the company's specific needs. Finally, everyone involved collaborates on an action plan to achieve whichever objectives the group has formulated. I agree with Crawford and Matthews that most decision-makers in so-called "customer-driven" companies suffer from self-inflicted wounds because of their inability and/or unwillingness to eliminate Customer Irrelevancy. Crawford and Matthews wrote this book for them.
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