Differentiation Strategies for Business and Stock Picks

Customer preferences are common starting lines for all strategies related to differentiation. This applies equally to business management and to stock market operations.

Technocrats are often guilty of trying to force their products and services on disinterested customers. It used to work in the early days of the 19th century Industrial Revolution. The approach persists in monopolies and oligopolies. However, there is no place for imposition in conditions of nearly perfect competition.

The first step towards meeting customer preferences is to target a segment or a cluster. Customers may be final consumers, influencers, sellers, or even colleagues. All stakeholders are customers. Readers are customers of this web log. Everyone is a customer, and has customers as well.

A customer is someone we are charged to serve. Even leaders and people in positions of authority actually have duties to serve the people who are their customers. The concept is not widely practiced because not everyone is a professional business manager. However, it is the only sustainable option when customers have alternatives.

Please list all the manufacturers and service providers for which you are a consumer.

Make a list of your own internal and external customers.

Exercises in identifying customer groups will help in segmentation, clustering, and targeting.

Post below or email StockWay.MyView@gmail.com if you need help with customer identification.

We will dwell on segmentation tomorrow.