McDonalds®, Microsoft® and Google™ all have one thing in common - a successful business strategy.

If you were around in the 80s, then you'll remember the Sony Walkman™ - a compact portable cassette player that allowed you to listen to your music anywhere conveniently. It was also reputable for its relatively high quality audio. Like with any product, many copycat brands followed, but Walkman was the word everyone used to refer to this type of device. Sony's competitive advantage over all the other brands was in the name itself. In fact, it was so strong that when CD technology replaced the audio cassette, it successfully transitioned its Walkman product to the next level: the Discman™.

Business Strategy: Relevance and Simplicity

Google™ was fairly late to enter the search engine business. Several search engines and directories existed at that time, but it was Google that changed the way people searched the web, became the #1 search engine worldwide, and in effect forced the other major engines to 'remodel'. Google's business strategy was simple - highly relevant search results and user-friendliness. Everyone is familiar with Google's clean, uncluttered home page. It has maintained this policy throughout all of its products and services, allowing it to expand to a point where it even challenges Microsoft's de facto monopoly over the home and business computing world. Today, three major engines rule the internet - Google is the unquestionable leader of the pack.

Strategize your options

As a customer, the more competition, the better, because you have more options, and the fiercer the competition, the lower the prices go.

As an emerging business, you need to position yourself to stand out from your competitors. You can do this by:

1. Offering lower prices than your competitors
2. Offering something different from your competitors

Low Price Business Strategy

If your business strategy is to offer lower prices, you're going to please your customers. However, doing so will come at a cost, especially if your business is a startup. Firstly, your more established competitors will engage you into a price war, which isn't something you want. They have the advantage of more knowledge, experience, efficiency and more financing/credit options.

When starting new, go "niche". Go different.

The best strategy you can go with if you're a startup with limited access to capital is to tailor your product or service to a niche market. Your niche should be small enough that you can design your product or service to meet its demands, but large enough that you have a market in which you can profit. It's like the old saying ...

It's better to be a big fish in a small pond than a small fish in a big pond.

Your success will rely on the extent to which you can satisfy your clientele, and when you're just starting out, going niche is a very smart business strategy. You can also find and target your niche market online.

What sets you apart from the crowd?

Most thriving businesses started out small. The most successful businesses employed a business strategy that set them apart from their competitors. What about you?

Do you have a...

• Patented product, process or formula. No one else can offer what you do - without your consent. That gives you a sense of exclusivity and a higher margin. Think Pfizer or KFC.
• Monopoly. You have essentially no serious competition, or your products or services are the standard in your industry. Think Microsoft or Gillette.
• Strong brand name. Does your brand name stick in the heads of your market? Think McDonalds, Coke or Kleenex.
• Fast Service. Do you give your customers immediate or speedy access to your product or service? Think Dell, H&R Block, Amazon.com.
• Superior Service. Even if you offer the same products to your market at similar prices to the competition, do you offer high quality service or a guarantee to win customers over? Think Best Buy, Toyota.
• Responsible/Positive Image. Do your products stand out as representing the higher values of society, like environmental friendliness, or responsible business? Think GE, The Body Shop.
• Premium Product/Service. Do you give your users an experience or status they're willing to pay more for? Think Starbucks, Bang and Olufssen, BMW.

Having a well thought-out business strategy is so important to your success that not having one will literally ensure failure. As in the old adage ...

If you fail to plan, you plan to fail.

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