The Merger & Acquisition Leader's Playbook

CHAPTER 2Focus: It Drives Everything Else

The second component of the strategic playbook is focus. It guides plans and innovation choices.

There are four primary areas of core focus: design, produce, deliver, or service (Figure 2.1). Most organizations do all four to one degree or another in addition to marketing and selling, which all must do. Pick one as your main strategic focus and primary differentiator, with other activities and your culture flowing into or from that.

Value is defined as the customer's view of the relation between your perceived, relative benefits and your perceived, relative costs.

• Design-focused organizations win by imagining new valuable things—brand-new things and next versions of great products and services.
• Production-focused organizations win by making valuable things out of disparate elements.

  

  FIGURE 2.1 Core Focus

• Delivery-focused organizations win by conveying valuable things from one party to another.
• Service-focused organizations win by valuably enhancing their customers' experiences.

While most organizations do some level of design, production, delivery, and service and all must market and sell, the most successful organizations have a clear focus on one of the first four areas.

Design-Focused

To focus on design is to create, adapt, ...