Is the competition making you feel a bit crowded? Are too many competitors providing a similar offering, but for a lower price? Is your quarterly forecast based on the hope that your competitors will soon misstep?

If so, it is time to shift your focus from improving your execution and time to look at your market position. Instead of fighting for a bigger slice of the existing pie, it is time to find a new position – one that doesn’t force your product and marketing teams to decide between a differentiated market position or a low cost leadership position.

What if you could provide value and cost leadership to your customers?

Southwest Airlines does it every day. They are a low cost provider, and yet they boast some of the highest customer satisfaction ratings in the airline industry. They were able to create uncontested market space and exploit it. The competition has been trying to take a bite out of their pie for decades.

What about a more recent example, you might ask?

You don’t have to look hard for examples, such as Microsoft’s recent announcement of the upcoming release of Office 2010. The main focus of this new software release is to help Microsoft Office maintain relevance in the face of low cost online alternatives, such as the one from Google. As most disruptive innovations start out, Google Docs made its appearance without a clear market position back in 2006. Questions like “Can I trust Google with my documents?” abounded. Now fast-forward to 2010, where large and small corporations are switching over to Google Docs, because Google has earned trust and relevance in the marketplace. Whether Google will be able to sustain a long-term advantage over Microsoft is hard to see at this point. If one thing is true, it is that Microsoft throws everything they have at the competition when it sees a threat.

The point is that both Google and Southwest didn’t do anything particularly brilliant. They simply took advantage of new market positions that their competitors were unable or slow to address. By doing this, they were better off than taking the competition head on, while gaining a first mover advantage. Most importantly, sharing the same pie can mean you end up with a very small portion. These examples illustrate that sometimes you have to go back and bake a whole new pie – one that people are willing to line up to eat.