Competitors: Every successful enterprise is going to have competition of some kind. Patents, trade secrets and other efforts may offer some protection from the head to head direct competitor who has exactly the same  product or service. Even in those situations there is competition. Substitutions for your product or service exist. They maybe not exactly what you have to offer, but in the eye of the customer are viable replacements.

Your competition is constantly trying to make your customers their customers. The competition may come from the business across the street or from anywhere around the world. In many business location is no longer a consideration for a competitor. Components for everything from $3.00 calculators to billion dollar facilities are manufactured in one location shipped to another location for partial assembly, and on to another location for final assembly and then to yet another location for customer use. Competitors are added to our model.

This is not to say that location is not a consideration for your customers, just be aware they may be talking to a competitor you know nothing about half way around the world. In addition to location your competitor may be offering your customer differentiating value in the areas of service, technology, quality, consistency, packaging, price, quantity, customization, speed (cycle time), and any number of other areas. New ideas and approaches are tried every second of every day. Some are successful and some are not.

With Six Sigma Plus one the objectives is to understand the customer needs, demands, requirements, desires, wants, whims and if possible those things that the customer doesn't even know he wants just yet. Then with this understanding be able to meet all of these with such low defect or error rate that it becomes a strong differentiating element in the mind of the customer.

Competitors may cooperate in certain areas but are prohibited from doing so in other areas, at least in the United States. Common areas of cooperation are in the establishing industry standards. Agreements and work in this area can frequently make the entire industry stronger.

Although if you have ever been part of a standard setting effort you may challenge the assertion that what goes on there is cooperation. There are many other areas of cooperation between competitors, joint ventures, and limited partnerships to name just a few.

Your customers if not loyal customers are open to the competition. These people are constantly trying to make them one of their customers.

Knowing what is happening with you competition may prevent some very unpleasant surprises. Competitive intelligence is knowing about your competition and what is happening in the market in general. Competitive intelligence should be accumulated only though legal and ethical means. Many businesses share a wealth of information in trade associations, journals, conferences, web sites, press releases, annual reports, and a host of other ways. This is not Benchmarking, which will be discussed before we complete the model.

Competition has a very direct impact upon your customer satisfaction. The change from a loyal or satisfied customer to no customer at all can occur with a speed that seems to approach that of light. Your competition can be responsible for that change when nothing within your organization has changed at all. 

Witness the change in the retail market over the last several decades. Small General Stores that carried everything and were located in the down town area eventually gave way to the larger Department Stores.  These were still located in the downtown areas. Next came the Shopping Mall generally located in the suburbs with large Department Store as anchors for the mall. More recently the advent of specialty stores have emerged. 

There are basically two kinds. One is the "Manufacturer Outlet Store" and is frequently in an Outlet Mall location. Then are the stores that look like a big box and are not in a mall. They tend to have a narrow range of products such as electronics, furniture, music, office supplies, toys, etc. Of course there has been a similar change in the catalog business from Sears and Roebuck (that no longer has a catalog), J.C. Penny and Montgomery Wards to the raft of specialty catalogs. At least one of every catalog printed seems to show up at our house before Christmas. It only in the last two years that the e-commerce business has taken off. Everyone feels they have to have a web site and be able to sell over the web, even if Amazon.com has yet to turn a profit. Most surveys indicate that this e-commerce business is not new volume but rather a displacement of other forms of purchasing. This method of purchasing is starting to take the place of older forms. Books, music, air line reservations, office supplies, drill pipe, computer software, computer hardware, etc. are but a few that are in the news almost daily Industry after industry has had similar changes. Steel, auto, shipbuilding, communications, and airlines just to name a few. The point being the competition is constant changing. Essentially every change is intended to create totally new customers or move existing customers from where they purchase now to a new supplier of products and services. 

All of this puts your customers at risk as far as you are concerned.

If they are dissatisfied they will actively seek out your competitors whether it is exactly the same product or service or a substitution for what you offer. Satisfied customers will be listening to the siren song of your competition and may move based on any whim or reason. It is only your loyal customers who will normally give you the opportunity to meet or beat the competitors offering before becoming an ex-customer.

The absolute best way to develop as many loyal customers as possible is to know their desires, needs, wishes and wants better than anyone else and then have the capability of meeting those desires, need, wishes and wants with such frequency that no one else can even come close. With Six Sigma Plus one of the objectives is to perform at such a high level that there are less than 3.4 chances per million opportunities of failing to meet or exceed those critical customer expectations. Few if any of your competition will be able to match that level of performance. Thus offering you the security that your loyal customers will not be leaving and the business results that you want to have will be there.  

IS THERE A DIFFERENCE??

This is a quick way to determine two groups are really different, given a sample from each. The samples don't even have to be of the same size.

Plot the data from two samples on the same scale. Count the total number of data points where there is no overlap. Add them. If the total is greater than7 the groups are different. If the total is equal to or less than 7 you can't say they are different. For alpha =0.05.

A and B representing samples from Group A and Group B

AABABBAABBABBABBAAABBABBB

 small                                                    large

Can not say Group A and Group B are different. 2A +3B=5 which is less than 7

C and D representing sample from Group C and Group D

CCCCDDDCDDDDCCDCDDCDDDDD

small                                                       large

Group C and Group D are different. 4C+5D=9 which is greater than  7

Quotes

Learning is not attained by chance. It must be sought for with ardor and attended to with diligence. Abigail Adams 

Any fact facing us is not as important as our attitude toward it, for that determines our success or failure. The way you think about a fact may defeat you before you ever do anything about it. You are overcome by the fact because you think you are. Norman Vincent Peale   

Cary W. Adams

Adams Associates

10A Bayou RD

Lake Jackson, TX 77566

phone 1-979-297-5198

cadams@adamssixsigma.com

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