Among several implications that the bank took away from the 3-Circle analysis was the importance of building and reinforcing the team culture as their distinctive competitive advantage (what we call Area A). This involved creating new education programs and building in initiatives to proactively get clients and prospective clients in front of several different bank team members within relevant specialties.
One lesson from this chapter is that when you ask the right questions of customers, the insights that emerge are almost always actionable for growth. From the customer’s perspective, value is essentially what one gets relative to what one gives, and growth opportunities emerge from developing a broader and deeper understanding of both numerator and denominator. Competitive markets evolve around a shifting definition of value, which places a great premium on the firm’s ability to maintain a close eye on the value customers are seeking and how that is changing over time. There is nothing new in that message. But what is new (and needed) is a way to break down value and uncover the highest-priority growth ideas. We start with this issue in Chapter 5 "Sorting Value".
