Delivering Profitable Value

Delivering Profitable Value is an excellent look at ways to identify opportunities for making your products and services more valuable to customers. Unlike most books related to value which have little structure or focus to them, this one understands the importance of the ecosystem you use and in which your customer exists for delivering and using your offerings. One thing I liked was the series of steps the author proposes for comparing offerings available to customers. The book uses lots of interesting examples, many of which are new to me. But each was easy to understand. It starts with a comparison of using an ATM and go to a human teller to point out the pros and cons of each.I was particulary impressed by the discussion of the value proposition at Southwest Airlines. Only Nuts! and this book have a good description. Books by well-known academics are amazingly dense on that subject, as Mr. Lanning points out.You also get some good information on advanced techniques for going beyond the limits of normal market research. This includes actually taking the time to become the customer or end user for your product or service, at the customer or end user's location. It also includes observing behavior with videos and following up with directed questions. Most companies use neither technique. Mr. Lanning started out his career at P & G and has developed from that company's fine approach to marketing and innovation a more generalized way of thinking that can be used by almost any organization. That is well done. His framework is robust in that it allows you to compare economic benefits (like a lower price, or being able to replace some labor in your manufacturing process) and noneconomic ones (like less stress) with competitive offerings. This is a very well done book.My only complaint is that he is so focused on the value proposition and improving it, that he pays little attention to the challenges of developing lower costs and better prices. Those areas need very thorough explanation, that is not really here. If the book had been entitled Diagnosing the Opportunity to Deliver Profitable Value, I would not have had this quibble. So really, it's just that the book's title is a bit broader than its coverage. Enjoy!

The author, originator of the "value proposition" concept, presents a new approach to strategy and performance. This system links the organization's capabilities and goal with the real needs of its customers. It replaces the conventional view of developing, producing and marketing product with choosing a complete value proposition, providing each experience in the chosen proposition, and communicating these experiences. This focus on the experience of the customer is the psychological cornerstone to the author's DPV (delivering profitable value) system. An extensive discussion of this system provides a wealth of profitable value this book delivers. Highly recommended. Reviewed by Gerry Stern, founder, Stern & Associates, author of Stern's Sourcefinder The Master Directory to HR and Business Management Information & Resources, Stern's CyberSpace SourceFinder, and the Compensation and Benefits SourceFinder.

The DPV process, and the text itself, are excellent tools. They guide a company away from excessive internal or customer compelled thinking. The book's contentents instead direct the company to understand the experience the customer has with the company's products and all other interactions with the company. Our company is using this now.