Читать книгу Value Merchants - Nirmalya Kumar - Страница 15

The CEO of Sonoco, Harris DeLoach Jr., and his executive committee have set an ambitious growth goal for the firm: double-digit, sustainable, profitable growth every year. DeLoach and the executive committee believe that adopting the customer value management approach is crucial for achieving such growth. Thus, DeLoach has championed a distinctive value propositions (DVPs) program, giving responsibility for its implementation to Eddie Smith, vice president of strategy and business development and a member of the executive committee. Smith has established that Sonoco DVPs must fulfill three criteria:

1 Distinctive—Sonoco’s value proposition must be superior to that of its competition.

2 Measurable—Sonoco prefers that all value propositions are based on tangible points of difference that can be quantified in monetary terms.

3 Sustainable—Sonoco will be able to execute this value proposition for as long as possible.

Although it’s not on the list, Smith adds the requirement that all Sonoco value propositions be “translated into the customer’s unique language.” By that, he means that sales and marketing people must be able to identify what’s in it for the customer.

The executive team has signaled how critical DVPs are to business unit performance by making value propositions the first of ten different metrics on the performance scorecard for which general managers are accountable. In senior management reviews, business unit general managers present the value proposition for each of their target market segments and key customers. Every presented value proposition is scored on the three criteria for DVPs. The general manager then receives summary feedback on the value proposition metric (as well as on each of the other nine growth factors) as follows:

 Green—capable of meeting the profitable growth goal

 Yellow—prompting significant concerns that need to be addressed

 Red—not adequate to meet the profitable growth goal

Not content to rely simply on belief, Sonoco senior management has had data gathered to understand the relation between business units’ value propositions and their performance. Sonoco has found that there is a significant positive relation. Further, it has found that improvement in DVPs leads to improved business unit performance.

Has Sonoco been able to achieve the overall growth goal that senior management sought, in part, through its use of customer value management and DVPs? Sonoco sales increased 14.4 percent from 2003 to 2004, 11.8 percent from 2004 to 2005, and 4.1 percent from 2005 to 2006, for a three-year average sales growth of 10.1 percent. Perhaps more important, profitability expressed as earnings before interest and taxes (EBIT) increased 23.9 percent from 2003 to 2004, 14.6 percent from 2004 to 2005, and 17.6 percent from 2005 to 2006, for a three-year average growth in EBIT of 18.7 percent. While superior business performance depends on a number of factors, Sonoco’s experience provides strong evidence that customer value management makes a significant contribution.