PSM: Individual Submission 2

Sagar Anand (1811352)

Discovering New points of differentiation

 Differentiation opportunities at points of customer interaction with the product/service can set a
company apart from the competition.
 A two-step process for differentiation is mapping customer interaction points and analyzing
customer experience at each point.
 Mapping customer interaction involves understanding how need is recognized, how the customer
gets to know the offering, how the offering is selected and purchased, how the product is
delivered, after sales activities and the disposal of the offering.
 Customer experience can be analyzed by understanding the environment and the circumstances
of product use.

Knowing a winning idea when you see one

 Three tools to win a new business idea are – creating exceptional utility for customers, setting a
strategic price and the business model guide.
 Buyer utility map can help managers to have a full range of possibilities for delivering innovative
solutions to customers. It is a combination of stages of the product’s uses (purchase, delivery, use,
etc.) and customer utilities (simplicity, high productivity, less risk, etc.).
 A right price for the offering is important to attract a large pool of customers. It can be achieved
by listing alternatives to the offering and market volume, and then deriving optimal price based
on competition.
 The business model guide is a series of questions that challenges the company’s efficiency, pricing
model and in-house product development decisions.

Steve Jobs Chapter 30

 Jobs saw Apple as a company that sold not just computers but an array of interconnected gadgets.
It was a great strategy because the marketing of one product could lead to sales of other
integrated products.
 Jobs envisioned to turn the computer into a digital hub by shifting complicated functions from
small screen to the computer. It started with video and tight integration of FireWire, iMovie, and
iDVD.
 Existing music players were complicated to use. Jobs insisted on a simple device which worked in
sync with iTunes which could be operated on computer.
 In iPod, a scroll wheel was used in place of buttons which made changing songs easier.
 Switch button was removed from iPod which shows how minimalistic design Jobs wanted.
 The tagline - 1000 songs in your pocket – clearly conveyed what customer would get.
 iMac advertising budget was transferred for iPod advertisements and it made perfect sense
because it promoted iMac as a digital hub.