Customer Value from the Customer Process

Customer value relates to a supplier's impact on a customer's process. Customers want to concentrate on the outcomes of their processes, retailers on merchandising and selling, banks on granting loans, and brand owners on positioning their label. With increasing frequency, they expect suppliers to understand and support the customer processes. In practice, this means that suppliers have to relieve customers of the factors that put a strain on their processes, while delivering services that meet customer needs, potentially at any time and any place. A company that wants to provide for key aspects of a customer process must concentrate on what it does best and look to partners to deliver any expertise it may lack itself—but it must not leave the customer to coordinate activities. Learning to manage in networks, where persuasion replaces formal lines of authority represents an organizational challenge for most companies.