The Manager's View

The graphic above, used in Alexander Chernev's Marketing Plan Handbook, is an illustration of how optimal value is created for business strategy. As the graphic suggests optimal value is created when a strategy provides adequate value for the company providing a product or service, adequate value for the customer and adequate value for any collaborators facilitating the interaction between the customer and the company. As the graphic suggests, the optimal value that insures strategic success provides success for all three participants: customers, collaborators and the company providing the service or product. Also as the graphic suggests an increase in optimal value for one of the participants can mean a reduction in the value for the other participants. For example a strategy that has too much focus on the customer can reduce the ability of the company to survive by putting undue negative pressure on profit margins. Collaborators can be critical to the succ...

I teach a consulting lab at the University of Houston's C.T. Bauer College of Business. Each semester two to four companies are selected to have a team of MBA students assigned to work with key company executives on a business challenge. Each team of students is selected from a field of applicants. The students’ resumes are reviewed and the faculty makes final selection for the team. In previous semesters projects have ranged from location and market entry strategies for banks, organizational design for moving intellectual property from design to commercialization for a telemedicine collaboration and the development of space use efficiency programs for a major airport system . For the immediate future projects include a marketing strategy for an Internet of Things software company, a marketing strategy for a global writer/author association and a manpower efficiency study for a major airport system. To participate a company must complete an application (shown below) and be...