Let's say for example you are a small soft drinks manufacturer. What could you add that would allow you to charge higher prices? One idea might be to add some vitamins to your mixture or if it's fruit juice ? no added sugar. Another idea might be to use premium or novelty packaging.
Have you seen the lolly in a tube which children can open and shut? It is based on the lipstick concept which allows the children to have exactly the right amount protruding for maximum taste. A normal lolly might retail at a few cents whilst this one retails at around a dollar! Same product plus novel packaging equals much higher profit.
Another idea that aroused my interest was when a well known toothpaste manufacturer managed to increase the sales of their product by just increasing the size of the hole! They realised that their customers used to spread a line of toothpaste and when they increased the size of the aperture people carried on spreading the same length not realising that they were using more toothpaste!
Recently have you noticed that cans of beer & juice have wider apertures to allow us to gulp our drink quicker? You can now drink just as easily from a can as you would from a glass. Not all manufacturers have followed this example yet!
Have a look on the Internet and you will find that the best websites offer a lot of information for free. Some of them have a whole host of articles telling you how to do their job! Off course what they are really counting on is the fact that even if they show you how to do it you might not have the time or the inclination to do it! By explaining the processes involved it serves to show their expertise on the issue and means that you are more likely to become a customer.
By adding extra ingredients, improving packaging, offering free information and looking at how easy your product is to use can make all the difference between charging a cut throat price and making a little extra profit.
Aligning business and IT goals ? a demanding task Most senior business executives have growth, innovation, better protection against risks, cost control, resource efficiency and a stronger ability to cope with constant change as major business objectives for the years to come. These same executives view targeted investments in IT solutions as important elements in achieving those objectives. That immediately raises the interesting question: what investments have the potential to deliver most bottom-line value to your business ?
Business value ? the driving force Some of the IT challenges that today's mid-market companies experience are that the promised return on investment is not delivered, IT does not sufficiently enable the needed responsiveness and the IT solution portfolio is too expensive to maintain and operate. But maybe even more severe is the fact that not enough value is provided to the core business.
When IT is not sufficiently aligned with business strategy and goals, too much focus is on technology ? too little on incremental, manageable change that delivers real value to the business. Last but not least IT is often a delaying factor when change is needed ? some times a crucial delay.
Many executives express that it is time to demand more value from IT investments. At the same time companies are seeking to make their businesses more secure in a less stable world and gain competitive advantage from a streamlined IT infrastructure. Their conclusion is clear: from now on IT will primarily be measured by its ability to handle the above mentioned challenges and deliver sustained business value.
The Express Value Creation approach is supported by tools and methods with proven ability to accelerate the value assessment process and quickly lead to the identification of hotspot areas for investment or areas where change is highly required.
The holistic scope of Express Value Creation Until now, many mid-sized businesses have been working at a technological disadvantage. Enterprise software products and solutions may offer the capabilities you need ? but scaling them down, rolling them out and making them work can require significant skills and resources.
The Express Value Creation approach eases the frustration that this may cause. All we have learned from working with mid-sized companies combined with the methods and concepts originally developed for large companies have been combined in our Express Value Creation approach. It is tailored to fit mid-market requirements like affordable projects, rapid return on investment and lowering costs of existing IT solutions.
The Express Value Creation approach provides a holistic view combining many important business and IT facets. It enables focus on exactly those business aspects desired by you. Strategy, process, organization and technology are parameters that you can adjust and that will have an effect on the way you run your business and the value IT brings to it.
We know how to create value Tight collaboration between your company's business and IT executives, some of your other business managers, and consultants with deep insight in how successful businesses exploit the benefits of IT is a major key to the success of our approach. We know that time is a scarce resource. Hence, we have focused on bringing proven techniques and models into the process. Business executives tell us they appreciate the way the approach is designed. To you it means : ? rapid value identification and realization. ? focusing on exactly those business aspects desired by you. ? a holistic view combining strategy, process, organization and technology perspectives. ? alignment of business and IT goals. ? making the value creation journey happen in steps ? at your pace.
We encourage you to challenge us. Let us demonstrate how we can help you cope with some of your major issues and together create real business values.
A unique mid-market advisor For years consultants from IBM Business Consulting Services and from local IBM affiliates have been working with small and mid-sized companies to help them identify what investments would provide most value to their business. Deep industry knowledge and experience with best practices are amongst our key competencies and our consultants bring ground-breaking business modelling frameworks that will help you view your business as a logical set of building blocks.
For more information. To learn more about Express Value Creation, contact Henrik Scheel, Business Unit Executive for Services for Europe, Middle East and Asia in IBM Business Consulting Services for SMB (HSch@ch.ibm.com).
Both Naz Daud & Henrik Scheel are contributors for EditorialToday. The above articles have been edited for relevancy and timeliness. All write-ups, reviews, tips and guides published by EditorialToday.com and its partners or affiliates are for informational purposes only. They should not be used for any legal or any other type of advice. We do not endorse any author, contributor, writer or article posted by our team.