Value Merchants: Demonstrating and Documenting Superior Value in Business Markets

FOUR

Substantiate Value Propositions

Demonstrating and Documenting Superior Value

CUSTOMER MANAGERS in a series of business roundtable discussions we conducted in Europe and the United States related to us that prospective suppliers increasingly deliver to them what has become almost a generic value proposition: “We can save you money!” But, as one participant in Rotterdam wryly observed, with all the claims about how much money suppliers were saving him, it was a wonder that his firm had any costs left at all! To assess the validity of these claims, though, he said that he would follow up a prospective supplier’s statement with a series of questions to probe whether the supplier had the people, process, tools, and experience to substantiate ...