CHAPTER 15
,The Divisional Strategy
Peaceful Coexistence
If the enemy’s forces are united, separate them.
—Sun Tzu
The divide and conquer approach to winning battles is well documented throughout military history. The opposition is also being divided in selling; although not physically, the business being pursued is being split among two suppliers.
The Divisional approach is a cousin of the Direct strategy; in fact, someone viewing its application from a tactical perspective might not even be able to tell them apart. But the intent behind the Divisional strategy is quite different from that of a Direct approach.
Sellers use the Divisional strategy to complement their competitor, to secure a part of the business, to build from in the future.
You go Divisional when you can’t overpower the competition and take all the available business. A seller will realize this after running a Competitive Differentiation Analysis and comparing Attack and Defend points. Recall also that your Support Base must be sufficient enough to facilitate whatever class of strategy you wish to deploy. If you don’t have the relative superiority to go Direct or change the ground rules with an Indirect approach, you must scale back your aspirations and work to secure at least a piece of the business. Think of it as taking a beachhead in order to have a place within the account. If you succeed, you’ll likely gain an opportunity to expand and strengthen your Support Base while you figure out how to move up the Sales Value Chain. At that point, you may be able to break out and more directly challenge competitors.
However, reducing the scope of your solution won’t make life any easier. It is much more manageable for a customer to work with one supplier who provides a total solution than it is to work with multiple companies, each of which offers a part of the solution. The exception occurs when a customer is seeking to divide up the business for risk management or cost reduction reasons. But if that isn’t the case, then you need to demonstrate to the customer’s satisfaction that you can address a specific application in a way that is far superior to your competition’s approach. And that doesn’t mean simply having more features and benefits.
You will have to show some kind of Unexpected Value to offset any compatibility, financial, or intellectual property issues associated with coexisting with the competitor. So it’s still crucial to move up the Sales Value Chain, because it will help you align with the Situational Fox or Enterprise Power Base members. Competitors don’t tolerate one another very well, much less want to work together. They usually do this only when customers require it—and that means Fox involvement!