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The Flevy Blog covers Business Strategies, Business Theories, & Business Stories.
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Editor's Note: Take a look at our featured best practice, Business Model Innovation (30-slide PowerPoint presentation). Innovative business models can reshape industries and drive tremendous growth. However, many organization find business model innovation difficult. The framework outlined in this presentation is based on the HBR article "Reinventing Your Business Model," authored by Clayton Christensen, Mark [read more]
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First, let’s define Value Proposition. Here’s what Wikipedia has to say:
A value proposition is a promise of value to be delivered and acknowledged. Creating a value proposition is a part of business strategy. Kaplan and Norton say “Strategy is based on a differentiated customer value proposition. Satisfying customers is the source of sustainable value creation.”
Why is having a clear and compelling Value Proposition so important?
Most companies believe they already have a compelling Value Proposition–a product offering that’s the best thing since Pokemon Go. But, do your customers agree? Is there a disconnect between the value as defined by you (i.e. Customer Value Proposition) and the value as perceived by the customer (i.e. Customer Value Perception)? This disconnect is known as the the Value Perception Gap.
To close the Value Perception Gap, we need to have an offering that is truly compelling. A compelling offering must both
A useful tool for determining those attributes that fulfill these criteria is the Value-Differentiation 2×2 Matrix, which defines categories of offering attributes:
At a minimum, we must have the Table Stake attributes. Without these, we aren’t a viable player in the industry, as we are not even meeting the customer’s basic needs.
To differentiate ourselves in a useful way, we need to develop the Game Changer attributes. Game Changers score high on both Value Proposition and Value Perception, thus minimizing the Value Perception Gap.
Many companies spend time and effort developing and marketing the Fool’s Gold attributes. While these attributes may also make the offering highly differentiated, the customer don’t need these bells and whistles. Companies that create offering with these features don’t have an accurate understanding of what their customers truly need. These offerings (and companies) don’t last.
Another powerful framework for identifying and prioritizing those attributes to create an offering of high Value Differentiation is the Value Curve. (The Value Curve is at the foundation of Blue Ocean Strategy, an innovative growth strategy framework for creating an uncontested market space.) The Value Curve allows us to allocate our resources by answering the questions:
Since we don’t have unlimited resources, we can only increase value on the Game Changers by reducing or eliminating cost of non-essential attributes.
What do you think makes a compelling Value Proposition?
You can download an editable PowerPoint about the Customer Value Proposition here on the Flevy documents marketplace.
You can download in-depth presentations on Business Model Design and 100s of management topics from the FlevyPro Library. FlevyPro is trusted and utilized by 1000s of management consultants and corporate executives.
For even more best practices available on Flevy, have a look at our top 100 lists:
These best practices are of the same as those leveraged by top-tier management consulting firms, like McKinsey, BCG, Bain, and Accenture. Improve the growth and efficiency of your organization by utilizing these best practice frameworks, templates, and tools. Most were developed by seasoned executives and consultants with over 20+ years of experience.
