Right now, thereās a buzz out there around the term Value Creation. But thereās also a lot of fuzz. Far too often, companies send out mixed messages about the focus of any Value Creation initiatives. Is the Customer the primary focus? Or the Shareholder? Or the Employee? Or all three? Sorting this quandary out is critical for any business that intends to stay vibrant and profitable. And, as we hope to convince you, it all comes down to a consideration of what happens at the Customer-Supplier interface. Thatās where everything that you plan, everything that you produce, everything that you hope for meets the real world. Itās where your business wins or loses. And itās where, hand on heart, the Value Genie team has world-leading insights, tools and methodologies that are researched and prove...
Hello. I recently received a letter informing me that UK vehicle registration number P117 DER is for sale, and that this can be arranged to spell out my surname. You can see the idea from the photo. The letter says: āFor the above number we are currently looking for offers in the region of Ā£5750 onoĀ (around $8,600); a price that we believe represents excellent value for money when you consider that this is THE perfect plate for your surname.ā The letter illustrates two important points: One: Value ā like beauty ā is in the eye and mind of the beholder.Ā The idea of owning a personalized number plate doesnāt hold the slightest appeal for me. I couldnāt even be bothered to gamble on the investment element.Ā I donāt write this in any pejorative sense: for other members of the Pinder tribe, owne...
We all recognize the astonishing technological advances of recent years. After all, we all carry supercomputers around in our pockets and purses. And we routinely use the internet, āthe largest experiment involving anarchy in historyā[i]. And terms such as āBig Dataā, ādigital worldā and the like are part of everyday business discourse. And yet, and yet, many companies fail to grasp the profundity of a fundamental change that these advances have both enabled and empowered: the power shift from Producer to Customer. Or maybe itās just that a lot of folk donāt want to see it. For the leaders of enterprises that thrived in the top-down-drivinā, product-pushinā, profit-hustlinā milieu of 20th century business, the need for fundamental change may not be greeted with wholehearted enthusiasm. Or ...
Thereās a lot of stuff out there about the 4Ps of Marketing. Fact is, the best thing to do with the 4Ps model is bury it. To borrow from the Monty Python team, āIt is a late model. Itās a stiff. Bereft of life it rests in peaceā. Letās take a step back. The 4Ps model ā Product, Place, Price, Promotion ā was created by Jerome McCarthy, a marketing professor at Michigan State University, in 1960. Thatās a long time ago: the year that John F. Kennedy became President of the United States; a new band called The Beatles played their first gig, in Hamburg; and the Pentel Corporation demonstrated the fiber-tip pen. The business mindset back then was all about Products. In the September 2014 McKinsey Quarterly, in an article titled Redefining Capitalism, authors Eric Beinhocker and Nick Hanauer pu...
Most businesses evaluate Customers exclusively in terms of their actual and potential spend on products and services. But many Customers are worth more. Some are worth much more. So it is important to understand which of your Customers fulfil the basic āmoney for productā role with no desire for any involvement beyond that. And even more important to understand which of your Customers are willing to participate further. Customer as a Customer The basic Customer contract with which we are all familiar is where a supplier makes or sources a product or service and puts a price ticket on it. Prospective Customers then make the āproduct versus price ticketā evaluation (often nudged along by some marketing activity) and either buy or donāt buy. In todayās parlance we can label this the Customer ...