Do you have a unique Value Proposition?

                       By Bob Cohen and Sam Sacco

Our economy is wading in uncharted waters. How can Staffing Industry operators re-focus their efforts to enhance their business's position?

We seem to be past the worst of the recession, now how do staffing industry operators move forward. Have you examined what you can do better than your competitors to distinguish yourself in your customers' mind? What capability do you have or can you develop to increase your business or at least survive these tough economic times.

Many operators believe that since the actual usage of staffing services is generally declining, the only way to grow or maintain their sales volume is to get business from their competitors. However, the cost of this business can be very high if you must further compress your margin levels to acquire the business. Be careful not to help cannibalize your own marketplace.

In their book, The Discipline of Market Leaders: Choose Your Customers Narrow Your Focus, Dominate Your Market by Michael Treacy and Fred Wiersema their message is essentially that one firm cannot be all things to all customers. Those that try to achieve this, often do nothing well and confuse their customers with garbled noise.

Who are you and what do you offer your customers?

·       Operational Excellence

·       Product/Service Leadership

·       Customer Intimacy

Operational excellence is characterized by:

1.    Low prices, limited choices, high volumes, heavy measurement and efficient delivery of services, (Wal-Mart or McDonalds)

2.    Strengths include very strong brand marketing and presence in multi-national regions served by multiple locations;

3.    Weaknesses include very little customization (as variety destroys efficiencies); deficient service levels at times as quality can be sacrificed for speed and limited local service capability.

Product/Service Leadership is characterized by:

1.    Innovation, introduction of new service models like VMS, RPO, MSP Master Supplier, HRO, BPO and others, (Nike or Intel)

2.    Strengths include brand excitement, new release anticipation and creativity as they push traditional boundaries;

3.    Weaknesses include often having multiple brands to promote, uneven capabilities and inconsistent service quality.

Customer intimacy is characterized by:

1.    A wide assortment of services often specifically tailored for certain types of users, (Nordstrom's)

2.    Strengths include a strong (local) brand reputation for customized solutions, often seen as true partner/suppliers by customers;

3.    Weaknesses include limited reach of services (few branches) often more local or regional players than multi-national providers.

These are extreme examples of value disciplines firms use to command a market leadership position and many staffing industry firms offer to some degree a combination of two or more of the value propositions listed above. Perhaps this causes some confusion in the marketplace.

Which of these (if any) is taken on by any particular staffing industry firm depends upon the sort of service that they provide and upon the organizational culture that they maintain.

Comment on this blog to let us know what your value proposition is.

Click here to contact Sam or Bob who have successfully completed over 120 staffing industry transactions.

http://www.racohenconsulting.com/contact.html