Phân tích và quyết định giữa các danh sách dài các tính năng không giống hệt nhau có thể là rất khó khăn và tốn thời gian, nhưng chỉ cần so sánh giá mua là dễ dàng hơn nhiều. Điều này chỉ cho chúng ta nguyên nhân thứ ba của khách hàng hàng hoá | The Driving Force of Commoditization 15 market is getting shorter and shorter. Competitors see a successful or improved product in the market and quickly match or exceed it. Another reason it is getting more difficult to differentiate products and services is that the buyer doesn t want to differentiate them. The more complex products and services are the harder it is for customers to compare and evaluate them. Analyzing and deciding between long lists of non-identical features can be very difficult and time consuming but simply comparing purchase prices is much easier. This points us to the third cause of commoditization the customer. Customers especially purchasing departments who are incentivized to drive down the price of goods and services are always trying to level the playing field. They attempt to reduce complex and valuable solutions to their lowest common denominators for good reasons. When customers are able to convince suppliers that their offerings are essentially the same they exert tremendous downward pressure on the price. For instance if General Electric s jet engines are the same price as Rolls Royce s jet engines and the customer can t or won t see any difference between the two what must be done to win the sale Unfortunately the easiest path and the one that takes the least skill to execute is to cut the price which is why so much margin erosion occurs at the point of sale. We ve seen many businesses that have chosen such a path eventually fail. An example of the extreme impact that even the threat of commoditization can produce involves a company whose leadership team called me after its business had taken a devastating hit. This company s technology became a standard in the chip manufacturing industry. It produced highly specialized capital equipment sold about 300 units per year and enjoyed a very large market share. When a competitor entered the marketplace offering the same thing 16 CAUGHT BETWEEN COMPLEXITY AND COMMODITIZATION for 32 .
