Create business value by focusing on end-users
Business value. What's valuable to a business?
At the end of the day,
the goal
of every company is to make money. So, ultimately, a business
values things that make it money. We should always do our utmost to
deliver value to our business by giving it the things that will
help it make money from its customers. But focusing directly on
business value is not good idea. Making money is most definitely
the goal but focus must be on the source of revenue - the customers
or end-users. If a business focuses on the money it eventually does
wrong by its customers and they go away and it makes less money.
Imagine a business that makes reasonable money from adverts
displayed in a heading or sidebar on its Web site. As user numbers
increase, the business sees the potential to make more money from
advertising and increases the amount of advertising space on its
pages. It also introduces pop-up adverts, all without considering
the effect on the users' experience. It turns out that customers
don't like the more intrusive advertising. It gets between them and
the reason they visit the site so they gradually stop visiting. The
business is left with plenty of adverts but fewer customers to
click on them.
Pursuit of revenue to the detriment of customers is a pretty good
way to not make money.
Drucker said every company should ask itself 3
questions:
- Who are our customers?
- What are their needs?
- What do they consider value?
To make money a business needs to focus on its customers'
perception of value. Give customers what they want and they'll be
happy to give you their business. Continue to give them what they
want and they'll come back, time and again, creating opportunities
to make further money. To deliver value to customers with
high-quality, reliable solutions and to move forward with customers
to satisfy their evolving needs, a business needs to understand the
customers' world, what the customers are trying to accomplish and,
beyond that, imagine where the customers are going.
Posted by Simon Baker -
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