Module 2 : Identify the Value of Your Offer

What is the 3C Framework?

• Purpose: A tool to analyze your situation within your market and identify value.

• Three main questions related to value:

    1. How do Consumers (Buyers) define value?

    2. How can your Company deliver value, given organizational capabilities?

    3. How can you deliver value better than the Competition, and profitably?

• Extended 5C Framework: Includes Context (broader business environment) and Collaborators (external collaborators, internal human resources).

What is Value in a Marketing Context?

• Definition: The customer's perception of all the benefits of an offering weighed against all the costs of acquiring and consuming it; this is the condition of the exchange.

Needs vs. Wants:

   ◦ Need: Something requisite or irreplaceable (e.g., Maslow’s Pyramid). Not all needs are functional, in B2B or B2C markets (e.g., functional, ease of doing, career, personal, purpose-led needs in B2B).

    ◦ Want: A strong desire for something, derived from knowledge, culture, and context. Marketing's goal is not to create needs, but to trigger a specific want from an existing need, by directing it in a certain direction.

    ◦ Latent Needs: Needs that people are not aware they have, often for technological products, that can be revealed through marketing (e.g., iPhone before its launch).

Consumer Analysis

• Goal: To understand what your consumers/buyers will value, requiring humility, curiosity, and empathy to go past personal beliefs.

• Data Collection:

    ◦ Primary data: New data collected for a specific question (expensive but specific).

    ◦ Secondary data: Analyzing existing data (cheaper but less precise).

• Types of Primary Market Research Tools: Exploratory, Descriptive, and Causal research tools.

Company Analysis

• Goal: Analyze the strengths and weaknesses of your company within its market, fed by corporate strategy.

• Tools:

    ◦ SWOT Analysis:

        ▪ Strengths: Internal characteristics and resources helpful in achieving goals (e.g., new technology).

        ▪ Weaknesses: Internal characteristics that may prevent achieving marketing objectives (e.g., budget constraints).

        ▪ Opportunities: External conditions helpful to achieving objectives (e.g., new consumption trends).

        ▪ Threats: External conditions that could damage business performance (e.g., new regulation, new entrant).

        ▪ Utility: Provides a picture at a given time but doesn't offer a clear path for investments.

    ◦ BCG Matrix: Used in a marketing context to know how to invest in different types of offerings based on market situation.

Corporate vs. Marketing Strategy:

  ◦ Corporate Strategy: Overall scope and direction of a firm, how business operations work together for goals.

    ◦ Marketing Strategy: Decisions/actions focused on building a sustainable differential advantage relative to competitors in customers' minds, to create value for stakeholders. Company's market situation (e.g., BCG Matrix input) is crucial for marketing strategy.

Competition Analysis

• Tool: Porter’s 5 Forces (used in both corporate and marketing strategy).

• Marketing focus: Existing competition, threat of substitutes, and threat of potential new entrants (often small, agile players driving innovation).