Imitation = profits

by John Strelecky

Most people have heard the expression: “Imitation is the highest form of flattery.” What they may not realize is that imitation is one of the fastest ways to increase profits.

Is your company trying to improve some element of its business? Are you pursuing new marketing angles, product offerings, opportunities to reduce costs or better ways to provide customer service? If you are, then avoid the very common and costly mistake of inventing something new.

Picture yourself and your company on one side of a giant canyon. You know where you are. You can also see across the canyon to the spot you and your company should be. Now, what question do you need to answer?

If you believe the question is something close like, “How do we get from here to there?”, then this is your chance to learn the real power of imitation. 

This is the type of question that leads people to start solving the problem. Our company is on one side of the canyon; we want to be on the other side of the canyon. Let’s figure out the best way to get there.

People who understand the power of imitation have a different approach. When they create the same picture in their head, the question they want answered is not, “How do we get from here to there?”

 Instead, they ask, “Who has gotten there already and what method did they use?”

To optimize the concept of imitation, follow the following five steps.

Define the challenge
Finding imitable solutions for overcoming a particular challenge is relatively easy. Clearly defining the challenge is where most companies experience the greatest difficulty. In order to get your company from one side of the canyon to the other, you need to know exactly where on the other side of the canyon you want to go.

Without a clear understanding of your destination, you can’t choose the way to get there.

For example, if your organization is trying to reduce the amount of production-line work, then it is critical to know specifically which part of the production line is going to be evaluated. Are you addressing labor, parts, method or something else?

Define the reason for facing the challenge
Ask yourself why this challenge exists. Are you trying to reduce the time it takes to produce a product? Are you doing it because then you can serve more customers? Defining the reason will help you find solutions to imitate and will also keep you from imitating the wrong solutions.

Believe someone already overcame your challenge
It is a rare company that has a challenge so unique and different that no organization before faced. At a minimum, something very similar to it has probably been overcome.

Understanding and believing that solutions are out there helps people find them.

Look outside your industry
Many times companies trying to find solutions to a problem fail to look outside their industry. This is a large obstacle.

Effective and simple solutions are often just waiting to be imitated. However, they are probably waiting within companies that sell products and services very different from yours. Look past the products, and into the processes.

Self-checkout is a great example of companies finding solutions outside of their industries. As more and more people have become comfortable using computers and other technologies, different types of organizations figured out ways to enable customers to check themselves out.

In a direct imitation of how banks and Internet retailers addressed this challenge, companies like Home Depot and Wal-Mart put self-service computers in the checkout areas of their stores. They let the customers do all the work of scanning items, bagging and paying for their purchases. Like the ATMs of the banking industry, this change enables Home Depot and Wal-Mart to dramatically reduce how much it costs to service each customer.

In manufacturing, automated tool cribs solve a similar problem. Instead of paying a distributor's employee to hand out small products such as end mills and safety gloves, production line workers can order them up like they would a soft drink from a soda machine. 

Notice all the solutions that can be imitated around you
When you buy a particular type of car, don't you suddenly notice all the cars on the road just like yours? It isn’t that the manufacturer suddenly flooded the market with your type of automobile. It’s just that once you bought your car, you became more aware of the other ones.

The same concept applies to noticing profit boosting solutions you can imitate. Once you articulate your challenge, determine why you want to overcome the challenge, believe that solutions exist and that they may exist outside your industry, you will suddenly start to notice different solutions everywhere around you.

You will become aware of all kinds of ideas, processes, methodologies and technologies you can imitate within your organization. A trip to the mall, filling up at the gas station, dropping off a video rental, will all become fertile ground for profit boosting solutions. Take note of them, and figure out how you can imitate them to boost profits in your organization.

Back to top

Back to Web-exclusive articles archives