Evaluation harnesses, instrumentation, review cadences, on-call and incident learning — the systems that let a product improve faster than competitors' on the dimension the customer cares about. In AI products the eval and human-feedback system is often the real capability because base-model quality is shared across competitors.
How Quality & feedback systems work
This is where Process power originates: embedded, path-dependent routines that competitors cannot copy by observation.
How companies won with Quality & feedback systems
From the win chains in Strategy Canon case studies: what the winner did, and what its rival did at the same step.
vs. Shift Technologies
Carvana
Cut unit costs while keeping the network
What it did
In the 2022-23 crisis cut SG&A and inventory, insourced reconditioning vendors (about $200 a car saved) and standardized plant playbooks
Shift Technologies
Cut footprint instead: Q2 2023 retail units down 71%, $3.1M gross profit against $22.6M SG&A