Value Merchants. Nirmalya Kumar

are equally good prospects for an offering! This not only dilutes the sales force’s efforts and diminishes its motivation but can have further negative consequences when customers purchase an offering that was not designed to meet their requirements.

      The resonating-focus value proposition for a market offering serves as the cornerstone for brand building in business markets. Although a number of points of difference and points of contention may have positive value estimates, we counsel suppliers to highlight in their resonating-focus value propositions the one or two that have the most value to target customer firms. Brand building for a market offering would then include devoting resources to significantly improve functionality or performance on those elements, demonstrating and documenting success in such improvements with customer value management, and persuasively communicating this progress to target customers.

      Over time, customer value propositions can function as a reference standard in making decisions about contemplated changes in the market offering. Are the changes congruent and reinforcing, or will they subtly shift the character of the market offering? Either may be desirable, but by actively managing change, firms can avoid blurring their positioning in the marketplace. Thus, for example, the general manager of a business unit should be able to rely on a value proposition to guide decisions among conflicting tugs and pulls within the organization on how to further develop a market offering. In doing so, she focuses scarce resources on making the offering outstanding on the few elements that targeted customers value most and would be willing to reward the supplier for providing.