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Presentations, Seminars and Workshops
Each of the following are offered as presentations, typically lasting 90 minutes, or as part of a seminar or workshop, which last from one to three days. Most often, in addition to presentations, seminar and workshops have breakout sessions where participants work in small groups on exercises and case studies. These breakout sessions enable participants to gain firsthand experience working with the concepts, tools, and frameworks being taught in the sessions.
Customer Value Management in Business Markets
Customer value management is a progressive, practical approach to managing business markets. In its essence, customer value management has two basic goals:
- Deliver superior value to targeted market segments and customer firms.
- Get an equitable return on the value delivered.
Customer value management relies upon customer value assessment to gain an understanding of customer requirements and preferences, and what it is worth in monetary terms to fulfill them. Although firms may be able to accomplish the first goal without any formal assessment of customer value, it is increasingly unlikely that they will be able to accomplish the second goal without it. Simply put, to gain an equitable or fair return on the value their offerings deliver, suppliers must be able to persuasively demonstrate and document the value they provide customers relative to the next-best-alternative for those customers. In this session, the philosophy, concepts, process and tools of customer value management are presented. Particular emphasis is given to building customer value models, which are data-driven estimates of what a present or prospective market offering is worth in monetary terms to targeted customers relative to the next-best-alternative offering.
Building Customer Value Models in Practice: The Kunst 1600 Case
This session gives participants experience in building customer value models, using a proprietary case. Participants learn how to construct value word equations to persuasively capture points of difference between two offerings. Value word equations express in words and simple mathematical operators (e.g., +, ÷) how to assess the differences in functionality and performance on a value element and what those differences are worth in monetary terms. Participants learn how to gather data to estimate the value word equations. Participants also learn how to gain estimates in monetary terms for value placeholders, which are value elements that a supplier believes are worth something to customers but either are too difficult to obtain data for or are social elements. Finally, participants learn how to use customer value model results to select target market segments and construct customer value propositions for them. Whenever time permits, it is advisable to have a prior break-out session where the participants work together in small groups on the case and prepare their answers to case questions.
Crafting Persuasive Customer Value Propositions in Business Markets
A persuasive value proposition earns a supplier the chance to engage the customer in a conversation about its market offering, with the aim of convincing the customer to try the offering. Increasingly, supplier value propositions take the generic form, "Our product will save you money!" Because most of these claims are made without credible support or detailed understanding of the customer's business, they are met justifiably with skepticism and disbelief by customer managers. This session focuses on how suppliers can set themselves apart from their competitors in crafting value propositions that customer managers will find persuasive. The session begins with the concepts and practice of positioning in business markets. Next, three alternative kinds of customer value propositions are explored, with consideration of what is required to construct them and have the sales force deliver them. The session ends with discussing the use of customer value management to provide the knowledge and substance for crafting a persuasive value proposition. Value case histories and value calculators are essential tools for enabling the sales force to successfully deliver and support the value proposition. A best-practice case shows how customer value propositions can be the cornerstone and guiding beacon for superior business performance.
Managing Market Offerings
Changing marketplace requirements appear to create a paradox for suppliers in business markets. Customers are requesting, and getting, more customized offerings. Customers increasingly expect differentiation and added-value in the form of an augmenting bundle of services, programs, and systems. Yet, customers are demanding the lowest total cost, or worse, the lowest price. This session first provides an approach to managing market offerings that resolves the apparent paradox: flexible market offerings, consisting of naked solutions, with options. Naked solutions comprise just those product and service elements that all customers within a market segment value. Suppliers then "wrap" naked solutions with options - specific product and service elements that some, but not all, customers value. Practical considerations in constructing and implementing flexible market offerings are discussed. The final part of this session focuses on how suppliers can get an equitable return on the services that they provide to customers. Five alternative business models for service provision are contrasted with one another and practical advice in implementing services for fee is offered.
Value-Based Pricing in Business Markets
Pricing market offerings based on their value to target customers is preferable to traditional pricing approaches, but it is more difficult to do. This session begins by considering the traditional pricing approaches of cost-plus pricing and competition-based pricing, and the often implicit assumptions underlying each that make them not as straightforward as they initially seem. A framework for value-based pricing next is presented and then is applied in a proprietary case to illustrate its use in practice. Finally, considerations in managing pricing at the strategy, tactics, and transactions levels are discussed.
Rethinking Business Channels
When should suppliers use resellers, such as wholesalers, distributors or dealers, to reach customers and how can they achieve extraordinary results when they do? This session views value as the reason for existence of business channels - resellers either are able to deliver superior value to customers relative to suppliers or they are able to deliver the same value at a lower cost. A conceptual framework is presented that shows the contributions to marketplace equity from brand equity, reseller equity and channel equity. The challenges of managing these contributing sources of marketplace equity and their relations to one another in practice are discussed. Next, partnership advantage and channel position provide a means for suppliers to gain an edge over their competitors, which even may be using the same resellers. Following this, adaptive channels are discussed, which are progressive, cooperative arrangements between channel partners to fulfill infrequent, yet critical customer requirements. The session concludes with consideration of how suppliers and resellers can work together better to achieve marketplace success.
Profiting from Strategic Account Management
Strategic account management is an appealing concept - devoting special resources to specific, large-potential customers in order to gain greater sales and profits from them. Yet many suppliers find it challenging to achieve these superior results from their strategic account management initiatives, especially the superior profitability. This session employs a case study to bring out the challenges in implementing strategic account management programs and to develop practical solutions that enable suppliers to overcome them and prosper with strategic account management. Whenever time permits, it is advisable to have a prior break-out session where the participants work together in small groups on the case and prepare their answers to case questions.
Sustaining Customer Relationships
Which customers are strategically right for a supplier to pursue collaborative relations with and which are better for the supplier to maintain as transactional customers? This session begins with an approach to partnering as a focused market strategy. A disguised case example is used to illustrate the approach. Then, having decided which customers to target for collaborative relations, how can suppliers gain a larger share of these customers' business? Strategies for pursuing relationship continuity and growth, such as focused share building and multiple single sourcing, are discussed. Finally, advice is offered on how to evaluate relationship outcomes.