In line with finding no. 1, Kickass Companies compete through product/service leadership. They tend to offer a superior product or service and can achieve premium prices because of the experience they create for their customers. They are excellent at leveraging their expertise across organisational boundaries by mastering such disciplines as collaboration and knowledge management.
Because our sample of companies consists of SMEs, this finding correlates significantly with the characteristic that Kickass Companies, in some manner or another, specialise in a certain niche, so they ensure that they do not end up competing exclusively on price.