---
id: "ext-treacy-wiersema-value-disciplines"
type: "external-framework"
source: "Enrichment overlay — adjacent literature (Treacy & Wiersema, The Discipline of Market Leaders)"
source_timestamps: ["Enrichment: Adjacent Literature"]
tags: ["external-framework", "value-disciplines", "customer-intimacy"]
related: ["concept-precision-efficiency", "concept-scaled-intimacy", "concept-commodity-specialty-spectrum"]
sources: ["tail1"]
sourceVaultSlug: "hbr-seg-tail1"
originDay: 1
articleStem: "hbr-tail-117-middle-market"
sourceUrl: "https://hbr.org/2026/03/why-companies-dont-compete-in-the-middle-market"
sourceTitle: "Why Companies Don’t Compete in the Middle Market"
---
# Treacy & Wiersema — Value Disciplines

**Not from the source — external grounding from the enrichment overlay.**

Treacy & Wiersema's *The Discipline of Market Leaders* identifies three **value disciplines**: **operational excellence**, **customer intimacy**, and **product leadership**. Market leaders excel at one while meeting a threshold on the others.

**Relation to the source:** The author's [[concept-precision-efficiency]] maps closely to **operational excellence**, and [[concept-scaled-intimacy]] maps closely to **customer intimacy** — the two poles of the [[concept-commodity-specialty-spectrum]]. The enrichment flags 'precision efficiency' and 'scaled intimacy' as the author's own *labels* on these established disciplines, sharpened with digital-data mechanics.