Walmart has the largest retail distribution of any company in the world, so you would think that your sales problems would be over if you could get your product in their stores. However, even though they sell massive quantities of goods, they are only good at selling a very specific list of goods to fulfill a certain kind of customer need. They are not, for instance, good at selling at the higher end of the market, speciality products, autos, airplanes, lumber, computers or anything that isn’t on their list. And really, if you were to dig deep you would probably find that they are not all that great at selling any specific item, they just provide product access and very basic help and because of their size they have the volume. So that leaves the door wide open for just about anyone to sell their own product much better than Walmart especially if your product doesn’t fit into their specific requirements. You might even keep more profit and create more brand value by keeping it out of their stores. Unique products do upset Walmart because they already have a business model that has worked and they are not about to change it. That is one very critical barrier to selling a new product or service, you may need to find or create completely new distribution channels to have it sold effectively. The point is, that what we see as someone else's core strength might not be, and it might be easier to create that function in house rather than outsource it. Some of the reason we have such a compulsion to outsourcing is that we measure profitability by gross profit margins and not net profit. Just changing the way we measure success can give new incentives to innovate with your business model and processes. Dow Corning is one company that changed the way they measured success from gross profit margin to total net profit and it kept them in product lines that they would otherwise have gotten out of. The new measurement helped them see the benefits of staying in those businesses that the old measurement kept them blind to. Look at Virgin Group limited, its core business areas are travel, entertainment and lifestyle, and it also manages ventures in financial services, transport, healthcare, food and drink, media and telecommunications; together, Virgin's businesses consist of more than 400 companies worldwide. So, what is their core strength? I would say that the core strength of Virgin Group Limited is actually unlimited and so is yours but you have to think critically about what you need your strengths to be in order to make your business more successful and then go make it happen!
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