There is a good book on the evolution of brands by the name of Origin of Brands. The book named and based on the theme of Darwin's Origin of Species, makes a case for divergence by talking about the evolution of species as to how each dominant species in the family diverged from an existing family. The author's contention is that the same theory of evolution that applies to life applies to business models as well. Life evolves, and so do business models.
Many of the current dominant companies in each market vertical diverged from another marketing vertical by creating a core competency and then doing it better than everyone else. Microsoft the dominant player in the software market did it by creating a new vertical -software. Before Microsoft the idea of a revenue component from software was alien to the computer industry.
Google did the same thing with search - instead of competing in the search engine vertical on the basis of speed of results, Google decided to focus on accuracy and do it better than anyone else. Salesforce introduced the idea of SaaS (Software as a Service) and used that revenue model as their core competency. Bill Gates calls this the "survival of the first."
The first step in finding the right answers is asking the right questions. So in this endeavor for greatness ask yourself these questions - What is going to be our core competency? Technically, what is our value proposition? Essentially, in this space filled with variables, what is going to be our constant?
Source: www.ezinearticles.com
