Can You Make Your Value Proposition More Valuable?

B2B executives do not have a good understanding of how they help their customers make money, according to this new study from The Spitfire Group, who spoke to Australian B2B vendors to see if they keep tabs on their customers post sale.

The survey, conducted by The Spitfire Group, asked whether B2B companies measure and track how much money their customers make as a result of doing business with those companies.

Just 26 per cent of respondents agreed that they measure and track this metric.

An executive primer titled “Own The Metric, Own The Customer” expands on the findings and suggests a new approach to measuring value propositions.

Director of The Spitfire Group, Stephen Ball, said he wasn’t surprised by the result: “We know from informal discussions that many B2B vendors don’t measure how much money customers make as a result of using those vendors’ solutions.

“But we were surprised to learn that while respondents don’t measure the impact their solutions have on their customers’ business outcomes, they still believe they will make their clients more money in the future. Around 63 per cent of respondents felt they had a good understanding of how they would do this,” said Ball.

So while companies don’t track how much money they make for their customers today, a significant number believe they know how they will make their customers more money in the future. “This is incongruous,” said Ball.

“It suggests executives are relying on opinion rather than translating their value propositions in to financial metrics their clients understand.”

Other key findings include:

75 per cent of respondents say their sales and marketing teams can consistently describe their value propositions to customers, yet 42 per cent do not believe their value proposition is well understood by customers.
74 per cent of senior executives believe their companies proactively develop solutions to meet their customers’ emerging needs. Around 36 per cent of marketing executives disagree with this assertion.
86 per cent of respondents believe a stronger value proposition would help to win more business, but 41 per cent of sales executives do not regularly engage with customers to understand what provides value for them.

The online survey was conducted in January 2016 with almost 200 responses from senior executives, sales, marketing and related roles.

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