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Our Perspective

What this means for leaders navigating growth, change or transformation in their organisation.

The Real Category

Most leaders inherit a label, then build plans around it. The problem is that labels lag reality. Customers don’t navigate by feature lists; they navigate by the progress they’re trying to make, and that progress shifts as contexts change. Reframing category as “the specific progress we enable for specific customers” turns positioning from a static description into a moving choice architecture.

That urgency is real: PwC notes that 34% of chief executives think a typical competitor could be gone within three years if it fails to rethink its business model. In other words, the boundary of your relevance clock is already ticking.

Strategic Consequences

Treating category as customer progress sharpens three decisions that quietly shape performance:

• Where you will compete: Choose the progress you’ll own, and publish what you’ll avoid—even if it’s adjacent and attractive.
• How you’ll align teams: Build roadmaps, qualifiers and channels around progress segments, not product types.
• What proves credibility: Tell stories of progress achieved; retire labels customers no longer use.

In our experience with leadership teams at inflection points, this normally shows up as “we have traction everywhere, but conviction nowhere.” The cure is focus with backbone: a bolder “no,” fewer initiatives, and metrics that track progress created rather than features shipped.

Operating On Moving Edges

If progress defines the boundary, operating rhythm must keep pace. Make it practical and repeatable:

• Run quarterly win–loss by progress type, not by competitor; feed findings into roadmap, pricing and partner criteria.
• Maintain a living “will/will-not” list; revisit it when customer contexts shift or new use cases emerge.
• Align incentives to outcomes delivered—renewals, expansion and time-to-value—so teams optimise for the right proof.

This cadence earns compounding benefits. McKinsey observes that organisations shifting roughly 10–30% of revenue across business streams achieved about 11.7% annual total shareholder returns, outperforming those that barely moved at around 7.7%. Reallocation follows insight; insight follows disciplined listening.

Signals That Stick

A category posture is only as strong as the signals you send. Buyers, analysts and partners are pattern-spotters; they judge by coherence.

• Packaging: Bundle features and services by the progress they enable.
• Partnerships: Choose alliances that deepen that progress, not just distribution.
• Language: Replace legacy labels with plain, outcome-first vocabulary.
• Proof: Publish case studies from boundary use cases where the new market lines are forming.

Get these signals consistent and you create an external map that matches your internal intent. Leaders who treat category as a living decision lens will set the pace as markets redraw themselves.

Sources:

• Why you need to keep changing your company's business mix — McKinsey
• Finding opportunity in reinvention: PwC Pulse Survey 2024 — PwC

1. Rebrand Strategy: Prioritising Impact Over Appearance
2. Rebranding for Relevance: Aligning Strategy and Experience
3. Sub-Brand Sprawl: Why Simplification Strengthens Strategy