6. To compete how should you differentiate your business?

Developing a unique business model is a process of combining your firm’s unique skills and capabilities to meet customer’s needs with your ability to add value to the product or service you want to deliver.

The New Zealand Challenge

Building a global brand from New Zealand adds an extra layer of complexity. Our domestic market is tiny—just five million people—and we’re a long way from our major customers in Europe, North America, and Asia. Those realities raise costs and make it harder to scale. How to address this issue is a major challenge for the New Zealand entrepreneur.

That forced us to confront a difficult truth early on: we couldn’t compete as a low-cost commodity producer. Shipping jars of honey halfway across the world already put us at a cost disadvantage. The only path forward was to differentiate—to find a position where consumers valued what we offered enough to pay a premium. That became central to our thinking: find the niche where New Zealand’s unique advantages could outweigh its challenges.

Differentiating Through Science

The turning point came when we decided to market manuka honey based on its methylglyoxal (MGO) content. Up until then, the industry relied on grading systems like “5+, 10+, 15+,” which sounds precise but the methodology behind the numbers is vague and inconsistent. Consumers didn’t know what those numbers really meant, and frankly, neither did most of the industry.

By focusing on MGO levels, we rooted our brand in scientific credibility. We could prove, with robust data, that our honey contained measurable compounds responsible for its antibacterial activity. This wasn’t marketing fluff—it was evidence-based differentiation. That decision set us apart in the eyes of scientists, health professionals, and, most importantly, consumers.

It also reshaped the competitive landscape. Other companies were slow to adapt, which gave us a valuable window of opportunity to establish our brand internationally. Looking back, it was one of the boldest but also most important strategic moves we made.

Building Strategic Pillars

That decision around MGO became the first real pillar of our strategy: Bioactive concentration. But strategy is never about one pillar alone. We added others to support a stronger foundation.

Reliability was next. It was no use building demand if we couldn’t guarantee supply. That meant investing in every stage of the supply chain—raw material sourcing, processing, storage, and testing. We also built relationships with trusted contract manufacturers to help us scale without compromising quality.

The third pillar was authenticity and quality assurance. Every product that left our plant had to be something we could stand behind, backed by certifications and laboratory tests. In the world of health products, trust is everything. Without it, marketing campaigns fall flat, and consumers simply walk away.

Capabilties must be built under each pillar to execute the strategy. Examples of capabilities can be skilled people with experience in key areas, people motivated by a growth mindset, installation of systems and processes to manage the capability and the business, manufacturing facility, fulfilment centre, regulatory knowledge and so on.

Key Takeaways:

• Strategy is a journey, not a one-off plan. Flexibility is essential.

• Building from New Zealand meant we had to differentiate, not compete on price.

• Scientific credibility through MGO testing gave us global trust.

• Strategic pillars like bioactive concentration, reliability, and quality created a foundation for growth.

• Capabilities—teams, systems, and partnerships—are what transform ambition into lasting advantage.

  
  

Your next read in the series 7. How to fund the business?

Building Global Businesses

A fuller explanation on this subject is outlined in my book “Going Global” www.goglobal.co.nz