Here is my third blog inspired by the new political landscape.  (Once again, I am not going to talk about politics.)

The formation of the coalition government reminds me of an important set of messages for small companies trying to compete in the B2B marketplace.

1.      Customers will not be interested in your product, unless it can be used to solve a real problem or to realise a real opportunity – ie to make their business work better.  (Technology companies: don’t forget that nobody will be interested at all in your technology for its own sake.)

2.      In order for a customer to solve a problem or realise an opportunity, they probably will have to do more than just buy your product.  Chances are that they will need to add a whole raft of things to go with it.  For example: training, adjustment (or complete reconfiguration) of operating procedures, software to analyse the results, interface with other systems, etc etc.

3.      Your business success therefore depends not only on how good your product is, but also on how easily the customer can get the other elements of the solution, and on how good these other elements are.

4.      So it is in your interests to make sure that the customer can get everything that they want/need.

5.      But you can’t do it all yourself, so you may well need to make partnerships with other companies who can, in order to ensure delivery of a complete product/solution.

6.      That way, if you play it right, you can box above your weight.  This works with services and intangibles, as well as with products, by the way.