Feature, Product and Platform Advantages

As a service proposition, when thinking about what your organisational capabilities could deliver in terms of "features, products" we are all advised to "pick the niche" and dominate. Its usually spoken about in terms of "we have higher quality screen resolution", or "we have a better rate of call delivery". When you see the advantages of being rated number one in your segment in terms of reputation effects, and company valuations, this may make some short term sence in terms of attracting initial customers.

But one of the things that you might want to consider is "how can investments made in the underlying platform enable us to outdistance our competitors over time". And for partnerships, or when making decisions about partner suitability, should we not also be asking about the evoltuion of the platform, and platform strategy? If your partners platform enables them to be more responsive to your requests for particular features "on your version of their service", might this be actually more valuable?