اندازه گیری ارزش درک شده توسط مشتری در بازارهای کسب و کار : شرط لازم برای توسعه و پیاده سازی استراتژی بازاریابی

Delivering superior value to customers is an ongoing concern of management in many business markets of today. Knowing where value resides from the standpoint of the customer has become critical for suppliers. In this article, the construct of customer-perceived value is first assessed through a literature review. Then a multiple-item measure of customer value is developed, and our approach is illustrated by the marketing strategy development project of a major chemical manufacturer in international markets. The article finally discusses how the customer value audit can be linked to marketing strategy development and provides guidelines for managerial actions.

Delivering superior value to customers is an ongoing concern of management in many business markets today, and the value concept is considered one of the most popular constructs among business managers and academia [1]. Knowing where value resides from the standpoint of the customer has become critical for managers, because greater levels of customer satisfaction lead to greater levels of customer loyalty and retention, positive word-of-mouth, a stronger competitive position, and, ultimately, higher market share 2, 3 and 4. In recent years, there has been a resurgence of interest in the value construct. In 1997, the Marketing Science Institute identified “value-related” issues as a research priority. In 1998, conferences such as the Annual Conference of the Academy of Marketing Science in Norfolk, Virginia, and the Annual Conference of the Industrial Marketing and Purchasing group (IMP) in Turku, Finland have given broader attention to the issue. Many researchers have investigated the construct, focusing in the past mainly on consumer products and services [5]. Research in the context of business-to-business markets, however, has been limited [6]. In industrial marketing, the value construct often has been neglected, leaving it to other disciplines, such as engineering, production management, or strategic management. Textbooks on business-to-business marketing still frequently limit the concept to the pricing chapter when comparing value pricing with other, more traditional pricing methods, such as cost-plus pricing or probability pricing. However, the value concept is of utmost importance when analyzing industrial buyer–seller relationships. Academic research currently is undergoing a paradigm shift from transaction marketing to relationship marketing [7]. In this context, the value concept is considered as a fundamental constituent of relationship marketing [1]. In fact, delivering superior value to customers is key to creating and sustaining long-term industrial relationships. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, researchers of the Industrial Marketing and Purchasing group (IMP) developed an interactive approach investigating the nature of customer–buyer relationships within a network perspective 8, 9 and 10. In this framework, customers play an active role; they establish solid and long-term relationships with their suppliers who often develop tailor-made products and services for them. But research on relationship value in industrial markets is still in its infancy [1]. Wilson and Jantrania have studied how value can be measured in relationship development [11] and Holmlund and Strandvik [12] offer a model of mapping perceptions in industrial buyer–seller relationships. Value can be created in three domains: value creation through relationships with suppliers, value creation through alliance partnering, and value creation through relationships with customers [7]. In the present article, we adopt the point of view of the supplier and their need to better understand the customer's perception of value. Because perceived customer value is not easy to measure in industrial markets, the main scope of the present article is to provide a managerial tool for measuring industrial customer's perceptions of value in form of a customer value audit (CVA). We argue that customer value analysis is more than just a pricing technique or a market research method. It is a strategic marketing tool for auditing customers' needs, positioning the company vis-à-vis its competitors, and measuring gaps in the buyer's and vendor's value perceptions. In this article, the construct of customer-perceived value is first assessed through a literature review. Then, a multiple-item measure of customer value is developed and illustrated in the context of the marketing strategy development project of a major chemical manufacturer in international markets. The article concludes with a discussion on how the customer value audit can be linked to marketing strategy development and provides guidelines for managerial actions.

In this article, we have shown that understanding how customers perceive product value can help suppliers develop long-term relationships. Because the construct is difficult to measure, we developed an operational tool of customer value audit to assist manufacturers in developing and implementing marketing strategies. The model's main advantage resides in its highly operational character leading the business marketer to relevant managerial implications. We have shown that value must be measured as a multiattribute construct. Perceptual gaps do exist between the supplier's and the customer's view of value delivery. The understanding of these gaps can help suppliers to improve their existing marketing activities, allocate marketing resources where they are needed, and train sales personnel to reduce these gaps. Future research should be directed towards fine-tuning the customer value measurement tool. The approach presented in this article deliberately reduced the multifaceted construct of customer-perceived value to the trade-off between quality (the benefits) and price (the sacrifice). The approach was based on a positive linear relationship between quality and price. Although we discussed the arguments in favor of this assumption, we feel that further research could be directed toward investigating this relationship. For example, which types of products allow for using a positive price–quality relationship? Nelson [46] and Darby and Karni [47] distinguish between search, experience, and credence qualities of goods. Search qualities associated with a particular purchase are those that can be ascertained in the search process prior to purchase. They are easily known before the purchase. Experience qualities only can be discovered after purchase as the product is being used. Finally, credence qualities cannot be evaluated in normal use, and they are generally expensive to judge even after purchase. Although the above-mentioned articles draw on examples from consumer goods, the distinction between search, experience, and credence qualities can be made in a context of business-to-business products and services as well. This study focused on a product offering where search and experience qualities were largely predominant. Regarding food ingredients, customers have a large array of possibilities to ensure that experience qualities and credence qualities are limited or nonexistent. For instance, they can ask the supplier for test results before using a product in their production process, test a product to be purchased in their own laboratory, or conduct small production runs before actually undertaking larger production runs. However, other types of business-to-business products would show a dominance of experience and/or credence qualities. These types of products would suggest different price–quality relationships. In addition, quality and price criteria and relative weights associated with these criteria would differ (e.g., the role of a brand name or the supplier reputation). Therefore, other types of products involving experience and credence qualities of business-to-business products merit being investigated in further research on customer value assessment. In terms of research methodologies, other techniques, such as laddering, could be used to explore means-end chains in industrial customers' perceptions of value. Additionally, the scope of research could be extended to include both relationship and episode benefits and sacrifices in the approach. Given the small size of our sample and the exploratory character of our analysis, the multiple-item scale we developed cannot be scientifically validated at this stage. Other studies have been directed towards this objective by using large samples to apply statistical methods of analysis [6]. The underlying hypothesis of such approaches is a strong homogeneity of the companies studied. Although this holds true for many commodity products, the homogeneity of customer expectations towards a product often is difficult to assume in the area of complex industrial products. By aiming at generalizing the validity of their results, such studies often lose part of their managerial character. Is it therefore necessary to abandon a systematic approach to measuring customer value for complex industrial products? The objective of our present study was to develop an assessment tool and a measurement process adaptable to many situations in industrial contexts. Our approach allows the manager to assess gaps in perception and to elaborate corrective actions to reduce these gaps. However, the validation of our approach and the improvement of the measurement tool both require replication in other markets. Customer value analysis is of increasing importance in industrial marketing. Yet, few researchers have investigated the construct in business-to-business relationships. It is hoped that this study will contribute to further empirical research on customer value and its relation to other areas in industrial marketing.