The art of being the best!

Without being the forerunner.

In the business world, competition is tough, that's a fact. So it's best to be adaptable, responsive, and resourceful in order to pull yourself and your business up by the bootstraps. But how do you rrenew yourself without ceasing when you're evolving in a so-called "saturated" sector? We've got a smart solution for you, so take note.

Find inspiration elsewhere

It's hard to always be the pioneer in your sector, isn't it? What if the smart idea was precisely not to be the avant-gardiste? What if your best strategy as a business leader was to take inspiration from what works elsewhere?

You've all been in similar situations: your business is stagnating or losing momentum. At the same time, a competitor is taking off. You need to find a solution at all costs, the economic stakes are such that you can't stand by and do nothing. So you search, you rack your brains, in search of something new to re-launch the business.

But could it be that the idea of genius doesn't come from your company? It's important to keep up to date with practices that work wonders in other companies. To do this you can visit working groups of companies, from the same industry as yours, you can alsobenchmark with the best in your field. Observing the successes of other companies to adapt them to your own is ultimately a excellent idea.

You draw your solutions from what's already working elsewhere, which is much less restrictive than jumping in blindly with a last-minute idea, right? Of course, there is one important nuance:

get inspired, yes
copy, no

Inspiration is an excellent source of stimulation to boost your business. Exactly copying a model from another company, on the other hand, is a mistake, a big mistake. Your business is unique, so you need to rethink a model that has been for you source of inspiration, at the risk of a backlash that's hard to handle.

Then shape the idea to your image

That's it, you've pointed to a innovation or best practice you'd like to apply to your business? Perfect! Your role now is to create a version tailored to your business . Either by adjusting certain points of detail to adapt the idea to your company, or declining another version.

The first point is to refine the innovation in your head. For your idea, ask yourself if

The idea fits your target?
Can you transpose this idea to your industry?
Is this a niche market?
Are you bringing in a new way of selling from another country?

Once this has been defined, it's a matter of finding the strengths and weaknesses of this idea in your market by carrying out a SWOT(Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats). It's also important to find YOUR strength and YOUR weakness to figure out what you're going to bring more to this idea.

Don't forget to assess the competitive intensity of this innovation. If this idea has already been taken up by several companies and the market is saturated, it's going to be more complicated to take it up in your image.

As you can see, you don't have to be an absolute forerunner for your business to perform. On the other hand, remaining alert, attentive and adaptable are vital factors in guiding your company to success.