Value Creation Strategy – Business Model

To create sustainable, long-term value for all the stakeholders of a firm, it is important to explicitly establish an appropriate stakeholder value target. However what would constitute the “success” condition for all the stakeholders of a firm would vary from the goals of individual stakeholder. For an investor in a firm, value may be seen as through higher market price of his stocks and bonds, where as, for a mid level worker, value may mean better returns in terms of satisfaction from the job, maybe in terms of pay grade improvements or in terms of job satisfaction. Although, what constitutes “value creation” may be dependent on stakeholder perception, for a generic strategic framework, there is a need to conceptualize a generic framework to achieve a target so the value may be created for the firm as a whole, in strict strategic sense.

The key to reach this target and achieve a sustainable competitive advantage is the alignment of business strategy, financial strategy, technology strategy, marketing strategy and investor strategies. One such model developed in strategic management literature is that of Strategy Maps.

In Strategic Maps framework, value is created through 3 main organizational resources, namely Human Capital, Information capital and Organization Capital.

As depicted in this model, value for a firm is essentially created through the interaction of  four processes, namely, “Operations management processes“, “Customer relationship management processes“, “Innovation processes” and “Regulatory and Social processes“. Under each process, there are lots of transaction level processes which create value. Monitoring and strategizing on the value creation of  transaction level processes is the functionality of Mid Level management in the organization which may be termed as “Ploy for Value Creation“. Focus here could be “Ploys” for improving cost structure or improving asset utilization within the firm. The objective at this level is to focus on productivity enhancing strategies.

For the executive senior management, strategy formulation for the purpose of “Value creation” would have a different focus. Their objective could be to expand the revenue opportunities through entering a new marketdecide a growth strategy for a product or market, or focus on Business Diversification strategies. In short, the role of the executives would be to evaluate various growth strategies for the firm, which could lead to huge revenues and thus economic value creation in the near future, upon realization of the plan post implementation of the strategy.

There are many other strategic frameworks for the creation of value for businesses which have their individual merits and limitations.  Another popular framework for value creation is that of Prahlad et al. (2004)

Do let us know if you have any query.

 

How to build a Successful Business Model or a Business Plan?

Business Models are crucial for the success of an enterprise or even a startup. So what do you need to focus on while building up your business from scratch? A Business model or a Business Plan (B-Plan) helps you to plan this properly.

  • What are the firm’s core capabilities?
  • How does the firm deliver value to its clients? How does the network with its partners/collaborators (value chain) add to its core competencies. How does the value chain model collaborate with the firms current strategies?
  • What is the cost structure in the business vis-a-vis that of the firm?
  • How is the value proposition unique and sustainable in the long run?
  • How does the firm manage its distribution channels and relationships / liasons with the customers?
  • How is the targeted customer contacted, acquired and retained?
  • What are the sources of revenue and the structure of the same?
  • How does the vision/mission statement adhere with what the firm is doing now and what it is planning to do in the future.

Can you Digg it?

Digg.com is still a relatively lesser known name among many people but is one name that is growing astronomically, especially in the United States and more recently India, where people live on the news provided on Digg. Read the success story behind Digg, the company which is changing the way content gets managed on the web.

Digg.com is still a relatively lesser known name among many people but is one name that is growing astronomically, especially in the United States and more recently India, where people live on the news provided on Digg.

Digg is a place for users to share content from anywhere on the web, be it one’s own blog or content from someone else. From the biggest online destinations to the most obscure blog, Digg users today share the most popular posts on the web and it has become a major single point to share content. Content gets popular, if more and more people likes it, and it gets more Dugg with increase of popularity.

Today, Digg is only 5 years old, and has a global traffic rank of 104, and is one of the top 50 visited sites in USA and many other countries.

Founded by Kevin Rose and launched in November 2004, Digg has grown to be one of the most popular sources of information on the Web. The team is led by CEO Jay Adelson, founder of the billion-dollar company Equinix (EQIX).

Following are the rank of Digg amongst all websites among few countries.

Majority of Digg users come from the following countries:

From a business perspective, Digg shows us how business models can evolve over time and how companies can create a niche out of evolving needs of consumers. A company whose revenue model thrives solely by engaging the users to add content to its site, and increase its hits, Digg is one of the wonders of this e-business era. Thus, all the users, provide  and manage content, and also vote (by Digging) which content they like better, and all this, the users do for FREE.

While this reminds us of Google and Wikipedia, whose success stories banked on the ability to manage and provide content to its users, Digg is unique. It actually helps to develop a taste of reading amongst its users as well. The user is guided on what is the hot topic that he should know about in the domain of  technology, business, science , gaming, lifestyle, entertainment and sports.

Today, Digg is positioned to be another success story on whom case studies would be made by students of business management, as one of the wonders of the internet business models, who changed the dynamic of the game.

If you were Digg’s competitors, what would you do? Should companies like Wikipedia and Google look carefully at Digg’s business model?