As a leader in the manufacturing industry, there are many factors you have to consider as you discover what your customers want and need and how you can provide that critical element to them. A big piece of this process is developing your business value proposition. This is the idea of looking at what you offer and what your customer needs so that you can create something that makes sense for you and also creates a profit for you, while it fits in both your business model and your customer’s business model. There are many elements that go into creating this product or service. It involves looking at what your customer has to do every day that you can help them do a little bit better. This could include overall processes such as helping them with their critical success factors, streamlining their processes or helping them with their routine jobs. But it mainly comes down to considering helping your customers with regards to two main components: addressing their pains or their gains.
When considering offering something to help customers with their pains, focus on their frustrations, failures, or elements that are rough for them in their everyday business practices. These could include problems they are having with suppliers, technology, competition, environmental concerns, or costly elements within their business. Providing a solution to their challenges will set you apart from your competition, especially if you can create a solution that also saves them money.
The other side of business to explore is helping your customers with their gains. Here you want to think about new products or services that could be game-changers for them. What could you do for your customers that would make them more successful? Maybe this would involve helping them to gain market share or make them look better in their community. Or possibly you have a new way of operating that could help them lower their costs. Whatever your idea is, this is the spot to help your customer shine!
Deliver the products and services your customers want and need. To do this, you should have your value proposition defined so that both your business and your customer’s business can move forward together. And as we continue this series, we will focus more on the customer discovery process so that you can continue to lead your factory forward!
