The concept of customer centricity is over a decade old. In that time, companies have improved at tracking customer information, incorporating customer input into product design, and identifying customer needs in their sales and marketing messages. Despite these advances, the most frequent complaints by decision makers involved in complex purchases are that vendors don’t listen, don’t understand their problems, and don’t convincingly articulate value. Something is obviously missing from all that customer-centric activity.
What’s missing is context. Most definitions of customer focus center on understanding customer needs. In practice, that leads to corporate tunnel vision. Marketers zero in on the needs and “pain points” of key audiences, but not in the context within which those needs represent high-value sales opportunities. That may sound like a subtle difference. It’s not.
That’s because the context, not the need, determines value for both the buyer and the seller. Your relevance to customers starts from understanding needs in context, and your ability to deliver tangible, unique value comes from meeting those needs in a way that fits the context of the customer’s business.
42 Rules for Growing Enterprise Revenue focuses on becoming more relevant—about mattering more to the customers and markets that represent the greatest opportunity for growth. Here are numerous integrated, cross-functional initiatives that enable companies to grasp and define the context for revenue opportunities. These rules embody three key themes:
Customer relevance is at the core of any successful growth strategy
Growth in new markets hinges on targeting the segments in which your product or solution really matters. Expanding in existing markets—whether through deeper account penetration, sales channels diversification, or focusing in on specific industries or audiences—also requires that you prove why you matter. This focus on relevance ensures that customers will value and reward your investments in new growth initiatives.
Being relevant demands cross-functional execution
This book is not about marketing, or sales, or alliances. It’s about initiatives that succeed most spectacularly through cross-functional action and collaboration. Relevance in an enterprise-wide scope encompasses more than product design and marketing message. It includes services and support, channels, sales processes, pricing, and packaging any aspect of business that matters to customers. Marketing can create brilliant programs, deliver well-qualified leads, and produce outstanding “air cover” in the press and online. Unless that success is accompanied by complementary efforts throughout the organization, the company as a whole cannot reap full benefits.
Sustainable relevance and growth require ongoing innovation and experimentation in every aspect of business
The rules cover a broad range of strategies with the intent to encourage companies to examine and experiment with a variety of go-to-market approaches. While some of these strategies will be new to your company, others are reminders to finally implement the commonsense practices you know but have yet to carry out.
The rules represent the most effective strategies implemented by B2B companies to increase the relevance and value they deliver in order to drive steep growth curves. This book contains seven sections. The first, “Relevance Is a Corporate Initiative,” is about going to market as a single integrated entity, rather than a collection of loosely integrated functions, and laying the foundation for relevance throughout the organization. “Pursue Markets Where You Matter” discusses identifying markets in which you have the potential to deliver the greatest value. “Context Defines Relevance and Value,” “Cultivate Customer Collaboration,” “Succeeding with Solutions,” and “Live in Your Customer’s Universe” discuss approaches for developing, articulating, and delivering value that truly matters to customers. Finally, “Nurture Your Channels” addresses one of the most important and often neglected factors for successful growth—the ability of the sales channel to comprehend customer needs and context, articulate why you matter, and adapt in sync with the rest of the company.
The ideas in 42 Rules for Growing Enterprise Revenue have been successfully implemented by leading enterprises, including BEA Systems/ Oracle, CA Technologies, Cisco Systems, Citrix, Informatica, National Oilwell Varco, Symantec, and many others. You will find some of their experiences described in these pages. Use these strategies to experiment and collaborate on similarly successful growth initiatives and to drive relevance, value, and innovation within your business.