Adding Value
I recently had the pleasure of speaking at the Quebec Technology Association. They are a great group of people.One of my fellow speakers was Paul Barter, a Professor of Technology, Strategy and eCommerce at the Schulich School of Business at York University. My sense is he will become a great author, thinker or speaker that I can say I knew him when...
Barter gave a great talk including a lot of the normal basics of technology and marketing like the five forces (look it up on the Internet if you don't know what that is about).
He spoke of the importance of being able to summarize your strategy in 35 words, S-curves, the technology adopter cycle from innovators, early adopters, early majority, late majority, and laggards, crossing the chasm, etc.
There is power in getting back to the basics.
The one slide he had that I thought really summed it was – how can we create value? How can we deliver value? How can we capture value?
Often I see people who add value but they are not able to capture it. And sometimes I see companies that add value in their minds but no one is willing to pay them for it.
The ideal is to find a unique value that is actually valued and people are willing to pay you for. Think about the unique value you or your company can add.
posted by Jim Estill @ 10:53 AM 
5 Comments:
Adding value; seems so basic a concept. I've been hearing it stated a lot lately, as people and companies re-focus on their purpose.
Jim: Great post, how we create value in every interchange is critical to individual and organizational success.
Until we can determine what value we are creating, we waste our customers' (or colleagues') time---as well as ours. If we cannot determine what value we will create in a meeting, we should cancel the meeting until we know what value we will create. Imagine the increase in productivity if all of us did this.
Thanks for a great post!
PS, I've written extensively on this. A couple of posts include:
http://partnersinexcellence.blogspot.com/2008/12/what-we-miss-about-creating-value.html
http://partnersinexcellence.blogspot.com/2009/02/is-there-real-value-in-your-value.html
I completely agree. Creating added value that a customer is willing to pay for should be the priority of any company, but, in my opinion atleast, this is much easier said than done.
Adding value is a corner stone of success in business relationships. I tell my clients all the time - focus on the customer, your peer, your direct reports - determine what they need to succeed. If you can do that and offer something that adds velocity on their journey - you will be adding tons of value! Also, this is something to focus on in good times and bad times... all the time. It is fundamental and yet focused on too little.
At 3:09 PM, Anonymous Jerome said...
I completely agree. Creating added value that a customer is willing to pay for should be the priority of any company, but, in my opinion at least, this is much easier said than done.
Read more: http://www.jimestill.com/2009/02/adding-value.html#ixzz0Y2ocd2Bx
I have to agree with this comment, completely sums it up for us. Value is some that we really take for granted and we really shouldn't we really have to take this part of the business seriously in order for others to do so as well. Great post thanks sharing.
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