Taking a closer look at what differentiates industry leaders

Zooming out from the Quadric Framework to an industry view, our proprietary analysis methodology evaluates the positioning focus of an industry’s main players, and the degree to which this has enabled them to achieve strategic differentiation.

Spotlight on: Automotive Industry

There are few industries where the battle for core ideas is more fiercely fought than in the automotive industry. For over 100 years, brands have won and lost based on their ability to own their position in the market over time, and where overlap is inevitable.

Volvo is one example that demonstrates the importance of ‘ownership’ more than others. While many early car makers pushed the limits of performance, aesthetics, driving dynamics or the pursuit of perfection, Volvo realised early that safety is and must be at the core of everything they do as a company. To this day, Volvo’s positioning strategy effectively combines its heritage in safety with modern advancements in sustainability and design. By building on these strengths and further expanding into luxury and performance, Volvo can attract a broader audience while remaining true to its foundational values.

Industry themes

In order to assess whether a company is differentiated or not, it is imperative to understand the industry’s most prevalent themes. One dimension of differentiation is whether your company’s core idea is meaningfully different to that of the rest of the industry, or that your focus on a singular idea is so strong that you take ownership of it, and therefore differentiating yourself.