The term "positioning" is widely used in the fields of strategy and marketing.
Overall, the meaning of strategic and marketing positioning is mainly described through the following five aspects:
Who are the customers of the enterprise?
What are the customer needs of the enterprise?
What products or services do companies use to meet customer needs?
What is the value proposition of a company's products or services?
What value does the product or service bring to the customer in their eyes?
For enterprises, the essence of strategy is to make choices.
So in the strategic system, positioning is what the enterprise chooses to do or not to do, and this choice determines the direction of the enterprise's development.Michael Porter said that positioning should not be limited to just one category, strategic positioning should be a unique set of business activities that can bring three results:
The first is to create unique value;
The second is leading in total cost;
The third is to make it difficult for other companies to imitate.
Compared to others, the positioning of marketing focuses more on customer needs and cognition
The positioning of marketing emphasizes the use of basic laws of social consumer psychology to shape a unique product position, construct differentiated product images, and thus make the product occupy a place in the minds of target customers.
Trauter's marketing positioning is essentially a unique sales proposition (USP).
He said there are three steps to achieving positioning, the first step is to invest enough marketing resources; The second step becomes the first; The third step is to enter the consumer's mind.Trout's positioning starts with advertising, and investing enough marketing resources is equivalent to "ignoring costs".This first step has already stopped and discouraged the vast majority of enterprises.
Both strategic and marketing positioning emphasize the needs of customers, as well as the details of designing products, services, and cognition that meet their needs, but overlook a dimension that is closely related to meeting customer needs:The way in which customer needs are met, that is, the transaction method.There are many ways to meet the needs of the same customer, and from the perspective of transaction efficiency, transaction cost, etc. with the customer, there are significant differences in the ways to meet the needs.The differences and choices in this trading method are the positioning issues of the business model.Therefore, the definition of the positioning of a business model is "a way to meet the needs of stakeholders.".
Products, Services, and Money Making Tools
As a way to meet customer needs, business model positioning can also answer a question from another perspective:Is the enterprise providing customers with products, services, or tools for making money?
Different answers correspond to different business model positioning.For example, selling air conditioners directly to customers is providing products.Enterprises install central air conditioning, provide cold and hot air to residents, and charge management fees, which is to provide services.
Chain franchise brands provide franchisees with a complete set of management rules, backend support systems, store location and decoration, personnel training, etc. This is a tool for making money.
For positioning services, generally speaking,Services located downstream of the product have higher profit margins and higher transaction value;Less resources are invested simultaneously, resulting in lower transaction costs;Downstream businesses usually generate stable service revenue, generally without cyclical fluctuations, and have lower transaction risks.For positioning as a money making tool, the characteristic of this positioning is that enterprises can share a portion of the business model value from it, and the profits of enterprises and customers are closely combined.Although this business model is highly attractive to customers, it requires the seller to have relatively high resource capabilities to ensure continuous profitability in the future, otherwise it will become a Ponzi scheme.
How to position the business model
1. Resource capabilityResource capability is the primary consideration factor.Designing a business model positioning should first consider the enterprise's own resource capabilities and find a suitable positioning.The needs of customers are complex and comprehensive, and there are various ways to meet them. To design the most effective way to meet customer needs, it is necessary to combine one's own resource capabilities.
2. Customer's real needsBusiness model positioning can be innovated and designed from the perspective of customer real needs.Generally speaking, as an industry matures, the commonly used business models in the industry will gradually solidify, forming relatively stable and differentiated formats.However, the market and customer needs are always changing, and fixed formats cannot maintain competitiveness for a long time.Therefore, starting from the most fundamental customer needs and repositioning can often have unexpected results.
3. Comparative advantageBy analyzing the resources and advantages of competitors, identify your own comparative advantages.Due to the fact that this comparative advantage is reflected in the way demand is met, it may not always come from the company's resource and capability endowments, but may come from the company's differentiated insights and innovation in demand.
4. Product positioningProduct positioning addresses the content issues conveyed by the target customer group and product value proposition;The positioning of business models solves the problem of how to meet needs and convey value propositions.The same product may have different business models; Conversely, different products may have the same business model.
5. RepositioningOnce the positioning of the business model is determined, the enterprise will be in a relatively stable transaction structure.When the environment changes, it is necessary to reposition the business model.The positioning of business models varies with the times and follows the trend, and there is no fixed choice.
'Positioning is the starting point of a business model.It connects customer value at one end, creating greater value space and achieving higher transaction efficiency through changes and choices in the way customer needs are met;On the other hand, the other elements included in the operating mechanism of the business model, including business systems, profit models, key resource capabilities, and cash flow structures, also determine the size of the value space of the business model.
