Perspective,
Position, Plans and Patterns: 4Ps of Strategy
In my earlier Posts, we had discussed about the ITIL
lifecycle and understood that Service Strategy lies at the core of Lifecycle.
Remember, all those efforts we put in the service is only intended
to provide value to customer. Service Strategy at the core actually defines a
unique approach to ensure better value to customer which “Better Fit for the Purpose” and “Better Fit for the Use”. We’ll come to this word Better which is
the key to success.
The value you provide to customer consistently becomes
normal over a period of time. Also, the business environment keeps changing and
the value you provide today may not be useful in changed scenario. Customer
always want improvement with no or very low increase in cost. Market is
competitive and you need to be innovative to deal with such situations. To keep
yourself relevant, you need to have some distinct capabilities that can offer better value to customer. The keyword
is “Better”.
There are some problems that you always need to consider
while preparing the Service Strategy. One is the rapid changes in the condition
in which business is operating. If you cannot cope up with changing demands,
you cannot survive. Second problem is need of focus on Operational Efficiency.
Even the best plan is bound to fail if it doesn't focus on efficiency. Third
problem is value capture. Suppose you developed a unique service that helps
your customer a lot in its business hence you captured the value. Later, observing
this many other Service Providers worked in that area and offered similar of
better solution. Now, you lost your distinctiveness and hence wouldn't be able
to capture value.
Let’s take a closure look to Service strategy.
While making Service strategy, you need to have a clear
Vision and Direction. This is the First “P” called Perspective. It describes
how to interact with Customer and How to Provide the Services. A good
Perspective narrows the competing alternatives and shows the distinctiveness.
Providing Value depends on Utility and Warranty. You always
need to balance between these two to Position your Services. While
strategizing, you need to have clarity if your services will be inclined
towards Utility or Warranty. This is going to be you highlight in competition.
You may choose to provide higher value services or low cost services. This part
of strategy is the 2nd “P” known as Position. Position is expressed
as distinctiveness to the customer.
Now you need to plan how you are going to offer your
services. For example, how we are going to ensure higher value services. This
is the 3rd “P” of Service Strategy known as Plan. Plan is the course
of action within changing scenarios. This is the plan on how to achieve the
Perspective and Position.
Requirements are always dynamic. Suppose you decided to
provide low cost Service to you customer. With changing market conditions, you
may need to keep taking decision and implement changes to your service plans to
ensure that you still provide Low cost services. This is the 4th “P”
know as Pattern. This is the Fundamental way the Organization does things. This
is also consistent set of activities to be performed in a
defined period of time.
All these four “P”s considered together helps to make a good
Service Strategy which can help the service to be relevant and be able to take
care of the problems.
