Читать книгу Value Merchants - Nirmalya Kumar - Страница 22

We can capture the essence of the concepts in our definition of value in a fundamental value equation:

(Value_f — Price_f) > (Value_a - Price_a) (Eq. 2-1)

In this equation, Value_f and Price_f are the value and price of a particular firm’s market offering, and Value_a and Price_a are the value and price of the next-best-alternative market offering. In this fundamental value equation, we subtract price from value, relating them to one another in a difference formulation. We demonstrate the superiority of this formulation over a ratio formulation to interested readers in appendix A.

We do not specify a particular perspective in our definition of value, such as the customer firm’s point of view, because we regard value in business markets as a construct, similar to market share. Because it is a construct, in practice, we can only estimate value, just as we can only estimate market share. For example, the supplier may overestimate the value of a given market offering to a customer, while the customer may underestimate the value. The supplier may have a significantly different perception than the customer of the technical, economic, service, and social benefits that the customer firm actually receives from a market offering or of what specific benefits are actually worth in monetary terms to the customer.

Value changes occur in two fundamental ways. First, a market offering could provide the same functionality or performance while its cost to the customer changes. Remember, price is not considered in this cost. Thus, the technical, service, and social benefits remain constant while the economic benefits change. For example, one product has higher value than another product because it has lower conversion costs and has the same performance specifications.

Second, value changes whenever the functionality or performance provided changes while cost remains the same (again, price is not a part of this cost). For example, a redesigned component part now provides longer usage until failure for the customer’s customers, yet its acquisition and conversion costs to the customer remain the same.

Even if functionality or performance of a product is lowered, it may still meet, or even exceed, a customer’s specified minimum requirement. More is better for some, but not all, customer requirements. Exceeding minimum requirements continues to deliver benefits to the customer, even though the customer deems a lesser level to be acceptable. For example, lowering the melting point of a plastic resin beyond a specified temperature requirement continues to lower the customer’s energy costs and to reduce the time it takes to convert the resin into a molded plastic part.

In our definition value is the expression in monetary terms of what the customer firm receives in exchange for the price it pays for a market offering. Because make-versus-buy decisions are possible in business markets, the value provided must exceed the price paid. This difference between value and price is the customer incentive to purchase. Remember, in this concept of value in business markets, raising or lowering the price of an offering does not change the value that offering provides to a customer firm. Rather, it changes the customer’s incentive to purchase that offering.

Having an accurate assessment of value provides a solid foundation for suppliers to create and deliver value to targeted market segments and customers. And recognizing that the value of a given market offering can vary by segment and by customer characteristics is vital. Suppliers practicing customer value management strive to both understand and capitalize on such variations.