Dr. Bates’ Talkback: 10 questions for an ‘MBA clone’ diagnosis

Are you an ‘MBA clone’? Dr. Andrée K Bates explores how de-cloning yourself does wonders for your ability to thrive in competitive markets



Though it came out a few years ago,Outsmart the MBA Clones: The Alternative Guide to Competitive Strategy, Marketing, and Branding by Dr. Dan Herman stillprovides some interesting food for thought for pharmaceutical executives.

Dr. Herman proposes that "MBA clones" pose an imminent threat to the competitiveness of the companies they work for.

All of those managers who are supposed to compete with one another, and create the very differentiation thatgives customers a good reason to prefer one brand over another, end up using the same data.

They conduct the same focus groups and draw conclusions from the same surveys using the same methods.

They analyze the same data with the same toolsand use the same concepts and approaches in order to create products and brands.

The result? Inevitably, most products, and even most brands, eventually evolve to appear as ‘the same’to the customer.

Without consciously imitating each other, they achieve the same results, simply because they think and act the same way.

More of the same…

Consider our world. Not only have pharmaceutical companies all embraced the blockbuster model, but they have also created remarkably similar organizational structures and built the same skill sets in research, development, production, marketing and selling.

Not surprisingly, given all the ‘sameness’,we have around 15 beta blockers on the market, 11 ACE inhibitors, seven sartans, five proton pump inhibitors, five H2 antagonists and five statins… and most drugs within a class are chemically and clinically virtually indistinguishable. (For more on product differentiation, see New models for drug discovery and marketing and Will big pharma become a collection of marketing and distribution firms?)

Not only do the executives attend the same MBA Programs, study the same books, read the same newspapers and magazines, and go to the same conferences—resulting in a similarity in managerial thinking thatactually decreases innovation and real competitiveness—but big pharma companies are all structurally organized the same way.

Therefore, many executives today, especially in the pharma Industry, turn into "MBA clones." So, what’s the problem?

All successful businesses need a strategy that differentiates them and their products/services to compete successfully.

Companies need to offer something their competition cannot do, or cannot do as well, if they are going to succeed.

By being an MBA clone, you are not necessarily going to be able to steer your brand and company out of the hole that the changing environment (patent expiries, conservative management, failure of a blockbuster model, new products failing to repay their R&D investment, diminished reputation, genomics, rise of social media and information access, globalization, etc.) is digging for it.

Of course, not every MBA graduate necessarily becomes an MBA clone, but they are a high-risk population.

The ‘MBA clone’ questionnaire

Dr. Herman provides a checklist so thatyou can see if you are an MBA clone, to know whether you need "de-cloning" or not:

1. Do you often use concepts such as "striving for a sustainable competitive advantage," "segmenting the market," "assuming a niche strategy," "fostering customer loyalty," "developing a corporate vision,"  and "adopting brand values"?

2. Do you prefer courses of action that already worked for others?

3. Do you focus on blocking competitors from gaining an advantage more than on attempting to achieve one yourself?

4. Would you agree that both you and your competitors segment the market in a similar manner and then focus on the same attractive groups?

5. To gain a competitive advantage, do you strive to be better than your competitors in providing clients with benefits that are known to be important in your market?

6. Do you consider strategy to be an analytical process of research, analysis, setting objectives and planning?

7. Do you address mostly direct competitive threats, while disregarding other product categories in which future competition could emerge, such as substitutes?

8. Do you try to "think outside the box"and consider out-of-the-box thinking as an important capability for managers?

9. Do you think that customers generally know what they want and where their preferences lie and, consequently, if you keep them satisfied (even delighted), they will remain loyal to you?

10. Do you believe that all brands are created for the long term and become stronger as they stand the test of time?

If you gave an affirmative answer to more than five  of these questions, I am sorry to inform you that you are, at least to some extent, an MBA clone.

De-cloning yourself will not only set you free, but also do wonders for your ability to thrive in competitive markets.

You might even beable to take advantage of MBA clones' biases and achieve an ‘unfair advantage’: the successful differentiation that your customers will be wild about—and your competitors will not imitate, ever!

Dr. Andree K. Bates, a regular contributor to eyeforpharma, is CEO of Eularis, which applies analytics to determine the sales impact of marketing programs.

For more Dr. Bates’ Talkback, see How to get more value from existing products, Sales force effectiveness in the Japanese market, Building brands and boosting sales with Twitter, How to mount an effective defense against generics, and How corporate social responsibility boosts business.

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