Customer Value: Achieving Speed with 'Simple'

There is nothing simple about B2B companies…customers who have complex needs served by suppliers who have complex solutions. There are timeless questions and emphasis on Value Proposition (are you solving problems for your customer today?) and Innovation (are you collaborating with customers to solve tomorrows challenges?). Throw into this mix the conversation we are all having on how Technology and Global competition are changing the “Speed of the Game”. Wholly crap, could we make business any more complicated!? It should cause you to pause.

It causes us to pause every day, and we are in the business of helping companies to better understand Customer Value. We built a software product that sits in the cloud that is called Render. But when we say it is Customer Value software that too seems complicated. So we pause, think about the marketplace and our role in it. We think…Simple. Let’s get back to simple.

If you have followed our blogs to date, Customer Value and Speed are Changing Everything in B2B, Customer Value: What is Scaring Your C-Suite, and "Speed of The Game": Welcome to the New Customer Value Reality, we’ve painted this picture of a changing marketplace driven by technology and global competition. We’ve chatted about the need to understand Customer Value, and move with speed to help your customers solve today’s and tomorrow’s problems. We passionately believe not doing so may well land you in peril in today’s competitive, empowered business environment. We’ve built this picture along the way: 

Simple? Maybe not yet! I call it the picture with a lot of arrows, or maybe lightning bolts. Why this picture is back to simple:  

• Suppliers and Customers: We start with suppliers with complex solutions, and customers with complex needs. The suppliers job is to solve customer problems, today and tomorrow, better than the customers other alternatives
• Cloud: In comes this cloud fueled by Technology and Global Competition that messes up everything. All of a sudden everyone knows everything. Data is flowing everywhere, machines are getting hitched and taking over.
• Man in the Middle: In B2B we have this Sales Person in the middle whose job it has been to broker the commerce of solving problems.  The Sales Person job is changing. They are not sure what to do.
• Scared Executives: Executives are trying to find a big fan to chase the cloud away since it is causing them to lose control…of their prized customers. They want solutions and quick!
• Chaos: the scene almost seems chaotic in its frenzy, connections, communication and data flowing in new ways, new entrants that were never before considered.

To achieve this simplicity we need two things, 1) Connection and 2) Method. This is not La-La land. Getting things done within B2B is anything but simple. We will need a tried, tested and proven method.

Connection: Render sits in the cloud and has the necessary bells and whistles to connect people. Connect them with a purpose. Solve problems. Not chitter-chatter. Engineers are not much for chit chat!  And not cloud sourcing. Good gracious, do you want your customers to cloud source all of their challenges. What we don’t see changing in B2B is its core of people working with people.

Method: This is where part two of Render comes to play. With Render, we have programed in the methods of B2B from GE, Owens Corning and other greats so these two people have powerful, proven tools to get their jobs done. Now these two people have the tools to work on Customer Value (solving challenges today and tomorrow) and the connection. What’s left is practice, execution and more participation. The result is Speed!

Companies are not used to doing business this way. It's too messy. Not organized enough. Not enough control. It's too entrepreneurial. But it is the way of the future. In the end, B2B is not simple. Understanding the value of the complex things is not simple. Understanding the needs of customers is not simple. These complex needs and solutions are what attract those of us who live in B2B to the space. Lots of us are engineers. But what is simple is bringing those two engineers back to their entrepreneurial roots…go solve some problems…faster. And watch the productivity of the Customer-Supplier production unit take a quantum leap forward. Fun times!

What are you doing to achieve Speed?

Check out Other Blogs in this Series:

1. Customer Value: Customer Value and Speed are Changing Everything in B2B
2. Customer Value: What is Scaring Your C-Suite
3. Customer Value: "Speed of the Game": Welcome to the new Customer Value Reality
4. Customer Value: Achieving Speed with Simple <--You Are Here!