For years, the booming Western Australian economy – in which the transport industry paid no small part and reaped no small reward – provided operators with a smorgasbord of options in terms of sectors to service. (Note: That doesn’t necessarily equate to a smorgasbord of work, of course; it simply means there’s been plenty of rings into which to throw your hat for work.)
There may have been a downside to this. Where operators are lured into bidding wildly and widely to myriad parties, they’re also at risk of ensuring the market remains keenly price-driven. In terms of the transport industry, that adds to the challenge of a service perennially at risk of being treated as a commodity.
“De-commoditisation” goes a good way towards offering a solution.
What is de-commoditisation? Let’s first look to the definition of “commodity”. A commodity is a product or service featuring little or no differentiation from other products or services in the same category. It’s a product or service whose buyers make purchase decisions based largely on price and availability.
Whether or not you see the service your company offers as a commodity is just that – the subject of your own vision.
I believe there are many ways in which even the most commoditised product or service can “de-commoditise” itself within its marketplace – and many degrees to which it can do so.
I don’t hail from the transport industry, so I won’t presume to offer suggestions for the de-commoditising of the actual “product” per se (although I’d be pleased to address feedback on this in future columns).
The type of “de-commoditisation” I can certainly comment on, however, is the competitive differentiation a company achieves when it conducts a proficient, diligent and client-focused bid/tender/proposal preparation process.
The bulk of my time in this game has been spent helping construction industry majors win civil infrastructure bids. Think that’s not a commodity service? Think again. When, for example, a roading authority releases an EOI for a major motorway project, pending people availability, most of the “tier ones” can do the job.
Their best non-price-based strategy for winning the work is to display not only a competitively superior knowledge of the client and the project, but also to very specifically demonstrate that the way in which it plans to deliver that project negates the client’s fears and helps it achieve its goals.
The formula is simple in concept, but executing it requires a genuine client focus and a good deal of homework. It’s not just a play on words in the submission document. But done right it ‘works’, and I can think of no downside for a transport operator – of any size – in availing itself of the advantages this approach offers.
