In the past, companies focused on developing standard products and standard service
lines and then incenting their sales force to
push and sell them to existing customers and
prospects. But many products or service
lines are one-size-fits-all and have become
commodity-like. For example, most banks
offer similar checking and deposit services. In
addition, competitors can quickly replicate a
company’s standard products and services.
Consequently, the importance of services
rises, which results in a shift from productdriven differentiation toward service-driven
differentiation to differentiated customer
microsegments in order to gain a competitive
advantage