Step #3: Developing Strategic Initiatives and Quantifying Impacts

The last step in our exercise is to develop a set of strategic initiatives. Because such initiatives are unique to any given firm and the industry it is operating in, we cannot attempt to lay out specific recommendations for your organization without further due diligence. However, we can present you with a set of generic actions that any company could undertake given its position in the Value Web relative to the other network participants. We hope that you will find this list of actions to be a good starting point for your own analysis and development of a custom-tailored initiative portfolio that is right for your company.

When facing a strong and powerful customer constituency, a firm’s strategic actions may include efforts to continually differentiate the offering to bolster the firm’s position as a high-value-adding provider. In additionto product differentiation, the firm may investigate the feasibility of partnering with or acquiring competitors to consolidate power, and/or create switching costs to lock in the powerful constituency. If the customer constituency holds a relatively weak position in the power grid, a firm’s strategic actions could focus on raising prices and/or cutting costs to drive additional profitability.
When evaluating its position against a strong service provider, a firm may consider bringing the functionality in-house via the acquisition of such providers or building the functionality internally in an effort to reduce its dependency on the constituent. An additional tactic may entail the reengineering
of the firm’s business process that involves the service provider in an effort to reduce or eliminate the dependency. When facing a weak service provider, the firm will likely pressure the constituent for higher value or lower prices.
Firms facing a powerful reseller/retailer constituency could consider a direct-to-consumer operating model, leveraging a strong brand identity. Additional tactics to get closer to the customer include improving the relationship through an improved service offering that the retailer cannot provide. Lower margins and again the direct-to-consumer model are two tactics that could prove appropriate to address less powerful intermediaries.

Taken From : Enterprise Guide to Gaining Business Value from Mobile Technologies