Every enterprise vendor sits somewhere on the embedding spectrum. Understanding your zone—and the zones of your vendors—is critical for strategic planning.
What it looks like: Your product does one thing well. Clean interfaces, easy exports, minimal integrations. A discrete function occupying a discrete budget line.
The trap: You optimized for customer freedom and got commoditized. Your “low lock-in” positioning became your obituary.
Zone 2: Too Hot (Over-Embedded)
What it looks like: Switching is theoretically impossible. Pricing increases annually without corresponding value. Customer success has become “retention enforcement.”
The trap: You confused embedding with extraction. You stopped asking “how do we create more value?” and started asking “how do we capture more value?”
Zone 3: Just Right (Goldilocks)
What it looks like: Switching requires multi-year transformation—but customers aren’t trying to switch. Pricing reflects value delivered. Customers reference you in earnings calls as “strategic infrastructure.”
Why it works:
You’re embedded because you solve coordination problems no one else can
Switching cost is high, but so is switching desirecost
Your success is aligned with customer success
You expand because customers want more, not because they’re trapped
The formula: Structural Dependency + Continuous Value Creation + Pricing Restraint
Gennaro is the creator of FourWeekMBA, which reached about four million business people, comprising C-level executives, investors, analysts, product managers, and aspiring digital entrepreneurs in 2022 alone | He is also Director of Sales for a high-tech scaleup in the AI Industry | In 2012, Gennaro earned an International MBA with emphasis on Corporate Finance and Business Strategy.
