Value discipline
Businesses today face a temptation to chase every emerging trend. Too often, they fall into the trap of trying to be everything to everyone.
The result? A diluted strategy that fails to resonate with customers, employees, or shareholders. Reinvention is not about chasing every possibility.
Reinvention is about strategic focus.
A framework to strategic focus
The Value Discipline framework, developed by Michael Treacy and Fred Wiersema, provides a powerful lens for companies to assess and refine their strategic positioning. It emphasizes selecting a single discipline where they can truly differentiate themselves and create superior value for their customers.
In the past, value creation was primarily driven by quality and price. Today, particularly in B2B, it has evolved into a more complex equation, incorporating service, reliability, ease of use, experience, and even a sense of belonging. To achieve market leadership and deliver superior value, a company must align its strategy, culture, and operations around one of these three disciplines:
Operational
excellence
Companies excelling in this discipline deliver consistent, reliable, and cost-effective products or services with outstanding efficiency and simple logistics.
Customer
intimacy
Businesses that master this discipline customize their offerings to meet the specific needs of niche or segmented customers, focusing on strong relationships and personalized solutions.
Product
leadership
These companies push the boundaries of innovation, providing cutting-edge products or services that continuously redefine the market and user experience.
The value discipline forces business to
make intentional choices.
It provides clarity, aligning a company’s operations, marketing, sales, and innovation efforts toward a singular, compelling value proposition.
When perception meets reality
Over the years, we’ve asked countless founders and executives a simple yet revealing question: “Which value discipline defines your business?” More often than not, hesitation followed. Many were confident in their strengths but struggled to pinpoint their core strategic focus. That’s when the real work began. The conversations that follow are always revealing. Many executives initially believe they are pursuing one discipline, only to realize—after deeper discussion—that their DNA, actions and investments suggest otherwise. This moment of discovery is where reinvention begins.
A B2B service provider was convinced that Customer Intimacy was its core strength. The company prided itself on building strong client relationships and tailoring solutions to individual client needs. Yet, as we mapped their operations, and even the founders’ DNA, a different picture emerged. Their true strength lay in Product Leadership—driven by innovation and cutting-edge solutions.
Accepting this reality changed everything. Instead of trying to perfect hyper-customized services, they embraced their role as product leaders and realigned their messaging to emphasize expertise and innovation. This newfound clarity transformed executive decision-making, making it easier to choose the right priorities, allocate resources effectively, and hire talents who thrived in a high-innovation environment.
A tool for alignment
This moment of realization wasn’t just a strategic pivot—it was an alignment with who they truly were. For us, the true power of this framework is not just in helping founders define their positioning—it’s in aligning the entire company around it. The most successful organizations embed their chosen discipline into their business model, culture, processes and systems, so far that competitors struggle to catch up.
We’ve noticed an interesting pattern when working with different organizations. Companies that share the same value discipline often feel familiar, even across totally different industries. Employees can transition between them and, after an onboarding period, feel completely at home. And shifting between disciplines? That’s another story. Moving between Customer Intimacy and Product Leadership can feel like landing on another planet.