The Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, USA Today and other nationally distributed newspapers have enjoyed a watershed of advertising thanks to Verizon’s aggressive attacks on AT&T 3G network coverage areas. For the past several months, as many as three full-page color ads have appeared in single daily editions of the country’s most prestigious – and costly – newspapers.

In the repeating series of ads, AT&T compares its coverage and network performance specs side-by-side to those of Verizon’s, and appears to come out ahead. According to most experts, AT&T, in fact, does have a technology advantage and covers higher numbers of customers within its 3G network areas. Rightly or wrongly, however, Verizon has captured the high ground by sowing confusion among consumers as to which carrier offers better coverage. As a consequence, AT&T is playing nothing but defense in a costly print, broadcast and online advertising campaign.

What is the lesson for other businesses? The superiority of your technology, product or service is not an absolute as far as the market place is concerned. This is especially true if features, advantages and benefits are complex and not readily understood among buyers or decision makers. Within legal limits, your competitors can make all manner of claims in an effort oversimplify, obfuscate or dumb down the selling conversation. When confusion becomes a marketing tactic, the only strategic response is laser sharp focus on clarity and understanding. Make that your strategy from the get-go, and your competitors will never have the option to use confusion against you.

Once a high-flying leader in home fitness equipment, Nautilus has gone back to basics, streamlining its product line. It also is reducing the number of sales channels to eliminate overlapping marketing efforts. Consumers saw Bowflex gyms appearing in infomercials, being sold at specialty fitness retailers and showing up in aisles at Costco. Myriad variations in features, model designations and pricing all contributed to the ultimate cost of confusion: no sale.

But Nautilus is not alone in learning this tough lesson. From the grocery aisle to the fast food menu board, some of the world’s largest conglomerates have realized the danger of having too many product choices. They’re figuring out that you and I don’t have 10 minutes to spend deciphering the differences among six kinds of Crest® toothpaste, five formulations of Old Spice deodorant or four types of Pantene hair spray to figure out what replaced the one we used happily for years. Now I buy whatever brand has the fewest products to choose from, so long as it does the job.

For another quick-read perspective on the risk of too many choices, check out this post by Derek Sivers, founder of CDBaby.

Bottom line – cut your options and cut your Cost of Confusion.

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What is it about guys and hardware that sends “systems’ thinking” right out the window?

I attribute the persistent gap between value promised and value delivered to the “cost of confusion” that occurs (yet goes unrecognized) whenever people and complex technologies collide. Companies falling short on technology bang-for-the-buck have done so because they—and their consultants—overlooked the basic “DNA building blocks” of a value delivery system and the productivity that fuels it:

• Technology—competitive, cost effective, and business focused
• People—trained, knowledgeable, motivated, and rewarded
• Processes—seamlessly aligned and consistently applied
• Organizational environment—leadership and policies that support strategy and drive value creation.

But wait, there’s more to the equation. The mere presence of these four elements is not sufficient to guarantee success. The “gene sequence” for maximum value creation requires all the elements to be appropriately integrated and balanced with one another. A missing or sub-par element negates the impact and investment made in the other three. As in any multiplication, the smallest multiplier will always limit the overall sum.

By way of analogy, consider the goal of winning the legendary twenty-four hour LeMans race. Purchasing the newest Ferrari (technology) is but one of the critical elements of a championship bid. Winning becomes a possibility only if the drivers and pit crew are fully attuned to the car’s performance and handling characteristics (people); are functioning seamlessly with a strategy for running the race and executing precise procedures for pit stops (processes); are being fully supported by the team manager and solidly backed by well-funded sponsors (organizational environment). It takes all four elements integrated and “performance matched” to deliver maximum value to the team’s owners.

When organizations start viewing themselves and their technology investments from a value delivery perspective, they invariably discover one or more system elements missing and/or woefully out-of-balance with one another. As you can imagine, this is not an endeavor for the faint of heart. It requires the discipline to bite the bullet instead of searching frantically for silver ones.

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