The document discusses the discipline of market leaders and different value disciplines companies can adopt, including product leadership, customer intimacy, and operational excellence. It provides examples of companies that exemplify each value discipline, such as Pixar for product leadership, focusing on innovation and quality. IBM is used to exemplify customer intimacy, focusing on total solutions and personalized service. Ikea demonstrates operational excellence through standardized processes and low costs. The document emphasizes that companies must choose a value discipline to focus on rather than trying to be all things to all people.

1. Discipline
of Market
Leaders

2. “Strategy is just a matter of picking
what problems you want to work on in
the future…success simply means you
get better problems.”
- Ari Weinzweig, Zingerman’s Deli

3. “I can’t tell you the key to success, but the key
to failure is trying to please everyone”
- Ed Sheeran

4. The Discipline of Market
Leaders
No company can succeed today by trying
to be all things to all people.
We must instead find an uncommon value
that to deliver to a chosen market.

5. Build & manage systems
and facilities
for high volume
repetitive
tasks.
ID, attract and build
relationships with
customers.
Conceive of attractive
new products &
services and
commercialize
them.
Product
Innovation
Operational
Excellence
Customer
Intimacy

6. A focus on the core processes of invention,
product development, and market
exploitation.
Product Leadership
Innovation
Knowledge-
Management
Collaboration
• Providing products / services that
continually redefine the state of the
art.
• Kill their babies.
• Key core competencies are
innovation and quality control.
• Strive to be the best.
• R&D & talent management.

7. • Total solution, not just a product or service.
• Focus on what the customer wants, not
what the market wants.
• Cultivate relationships, not one time
transactions.
• Specialize in satisfying unique needs.
• Customer needs trump operating systems
and processes.
• Go the extra mile.
Customer Intimacy
An obsession with core processes of solution
development, results management and
relationship management.
Relationship
Management
Knowledge
Management

8. • Low cost offer (blend of high convenience
and low price).
• Broad market focus.
• Not product / service innovator; instead
delivery innovators.
• Do not cultivate 1:1 customer relationships.
• Execute extraordinarily well.
Operational Excellence
Quality
Cost
Speed
Processes for end-to-end product supply and
basic service that are optimized and streamlined
to minimize cost and provide hassle-free service.

10. Why is this important?
Share my story of picking ours.
You’re never too small to start this.

11. How do the founders spend their time?
What key messages did you pick up on?
What value
Video Case Studies

12. “Selection of a value discipline shapes every
subsequent plan and decision a company makes,
coloring the entire organization from its core
competencies to its culture.”

13. Decision making at the lab.
Product Leadership: Pixar
Culture & Competencies
Employee centered.
Coddling the creative stars.

14. Product Leadership: Pixar
Goals & Objectives
While productivity is a goal…
…quality & originality are the goal.

15. Product Leadership: Pixar
Environments that promote collaboration.
Conference table story.

16. " ... [Steve Jobs] wanted there to be
mixing. He knew that the human friction
makes the sparks, and that when you're
talking about a creative endeavor that
requires people from different cultures
to come together, you have to force
them to mix; that our natural tendency is
to stay isolated, to talk to people who
are just like us, who speak our private
languages, who understand our problems.
But that's a big mistake.And so his design
was to force people to come together
even if it was just going to be in the
bathroom.”
- Imagine, Jonah Lehrer
Product Leadership: Pixar

17. Customer Intimacy: IBM
Best price? Hardly.
Best products? Nope.
Latest technology? Negative.

18. It’s about the total solution.
Methods for planning new business applications.
Training management.
Providing explanations of increasing costs.
Aided with diagnosis and resolution of problems.
Upgrading & maintaining systems.
Customer Intimacy: IBM
Providing the best overal result for client.

19. Culture & Competencies
De-centralized decision making.
All activities are aligned to customer needs.
Deep customer knowledge.
Not cheapest offers or most innovative.
Eco-system of partners for production & delivery.
Customer Intimacy: IBM
Tailored / personalized service / products to fit needs.

20. Operational Excellence Example: Ikea
Luxurious show-room? No.
Best in class quality? Nope.
Helpful sales staff? Negative.

21. Operational Excellence Example: Ikea
Culture & Competencies
Cost focused.
Stresses standardization.
Predictability and efficiency are key.
Centralized decision making.
Rules based operations.

22. But aren’t these all really
big companies?

23. Customer Intimacy: Nordstroms

25. On the inside of every Starbucks green apron, you will find their
new customer service statement: We create inspired moments in
each customer’s day.
Just below the statement are these words:
- Anticipate. Anticipate what’s going to happen to them or what
they want.
- Connect. I love those glasses. I love that scarf.
- Personalize.
- Own. If they take a sip and they make a funny face or if a little
girl drops her hot chocolate, offer to make another one.