What if your next competitive advantage is something you already own, but haven’t yet unlocked?
Fact is that many organisations already have far more strategic potential than they realise.
The challenge doesn’t always have to be centred around invention and innovation – it is often one of recognition and activation of what is already there.
What if your next competitive advantage is something you already own, but haven’t yet unlocked?
Your competitive edge may already exist
More often than not, businesses have resources and capabilities that are hiding in plain sight. Great goods and services, but not positioned properly; unique customer data, but underutilised and rarely acted on; a strong brand, but poorly communicated.
Without the right strategic frameworks, these assets can often remain dormant and forgotten, not because they lack value, but because there isn’t a clear lens through which to recognise and leverage them, or because the senior leadership team has lost it’s way.
Strategic development shouldn’t always start with a blank page; good questions can be:
- What are we already doing well?
- What’s working, and how can we do more of it?
- How can we work smarter and more intentionally?
- What do we want to achieve?
Strategy development, in this context, is about joining the dots between what you already have and what you aim to achieve.
How private equity and restructuring firms can unlock value
Private equity and restructuring firms are expert at spotting hidden or neglected value. Time and again, they’ve helped struggling businesses regain momentum by focusing on what is already working and urging leadership teams to uncover and refocus on their existing strengths.
In many cases, a competitive advantage is already there; it just needed reinforcement and more deliberate leverage.
We’ve seen this play out clearly in recent high-profile takeovers, one example being Bensons for Beds. A fallen star, the company was acquired by restructuring firm Alteri. Instead of overhauling the brand or forcing radical change, Alteri focused on revitalising the company by reconnecting it with its original purpose and strengths: good beds and customer experience.
These were not new ideas, they were dormant resources and capabilities and the shift wasn’t so much about invention, but rediscovery of what once made the company a household name.
The role of strong leadership and management
One of the most consistent factors in unlocking strategic advantage is strong strategic leadership. Not necessarily bringing more people on board but finding the right people who have the clarity and confidence to read the market, recognize dormant strategic advantage, and execute with intent.
That might mean emphasising strategic analyses. It might involve removing complacency, and it often means replacing pedestrian strategic thinking. Or it could be about instilling a culture of accountability and purpose that helps the business move from intention to execution.
It’s often this change in management approach that lifts performance by creating the conditions for existing capabilities to thrive. With the right leaders and strategic skills in place, underused resources become core strengths. What was dormant and forgotten becomes a source of growth.
Building strategic confidence
Understanding what you have and what it can become is a skill that can be acquired. Learning to see your business differently by spotting opportunities others miss, making better use of what’s already available, and embedding strategy into everyday thinking, is what separates organisations that talk about excellence from those that actually deliver it.
Strategic confidence comes from being able to assess, focus, and act. When leaders operate with strategic confidence, they move beyond surface-level solutions and instead build long-term value. They ask better questions, challenge assumptions, and create the conditions for their teams to do the same.
This mindset is what drives sustainable competitive advantage; not a new strategy for the sake of it, but a sharper, more intensive approach to strategic analysis and execution.
This is what we concentrate on in our course: how to unlock competitive advantage; not just design strategic plans to change things.
Join the course
Our Unlocking Strategic Competitive Advantage course is designed for senior professionals who want to lead smarter. Over four days, you’ll explore frameworks and tools to uncover your organisation’s latent potential, and turn these insights into a competitive advantage.
