Creating Collaborative Value
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Our best practice collaborative process is designed specifically to strengthen the relationships with your top customers and align all account activities around the things that are of highest importance to your customer. 

Additionally, this approach facilitates full engagement with your customers across the enterprise to identify relationship strengths and weaknesses, top customer value attributes/drivers, your performance in each, and frame out a direct comparison of your performance against that of your top competitors as identified by your customer.  You will learn what your customer values and why, your level of alignment, overall performance against their identified “Best in Class” suppliers, and jointly develop a specific action plan to close those gaps; all with the full engagement of your top customer team members.  This approach is designed for an account team to work together directly with their key customers to jointly outline a full relationship assessment and strategy that addresses and measures the key value drivers of the customer team, the priority of each, and the business impact associated with these value drivers.  This provides an effective way to create or improve ongoing, value- added relationships between customers and suppliers.  It is a well-defined, process-driven approach that results in overall relationship improvement and is guided by the systematic use of effective customer metrics to deliver value.  The work is conducted jointly with your customer to establish the crucial expectations, performance measures, relationship priorities, and build a collaborative value proposition necessary for long term relationships with your top customers. 

This practice is designed to improve customer supplier relationships, either internal or external to your organization.  It is particularly effective for sales and sales support teams concerned with improving customer relationships, and establishes a foundation for joint planning with the customer.  It is also effective for members of support divisions interested in better understanding and satisfying customer needs, improving relationships, and achieving a more cooperative relationship with your targeted customers or market segments. 

The Creating Collaborative Value process is implemented through structured, facilitated sessions with both customers and suppliers resulting in these outcomes:

• Creation of a joint strategic plan with full customer engagement and actions for elevating the relationship to “Best in Class”.
• Full and joint relationship assessment.
• Identified relationship strengths, weaknesses, total account activity, and resource alignment around the areas of highest importance to your customer.
• Key customer value attributes are identified, prioritized, and their importance to the business defined.
• Performance assessment.
• Supplier performance clarified, measured, and compared against customer expectations and your top competitors. Gaps are identified, and actions to close gaps developed.
• Redefined relationship and front-end discovery of what matters most to the customer. 
• Clear articulation of customer/supplier expectations of each other.
• Alignment of account initiatives with the top value priorities of the customer team.
• Drive relationship improvement by creating joint action plans and developing measures to track progress in closing the performance gaps.
• Agree on follow up procedures to ensure continuous improvement of both performance and the overall relationship.
• Growth of account revenue, share of customer, and overall resource optimization.  Actually focusing resources on those things that will provide the highest return.

The Creating Collaborative Value process features a structured mechanism for gathering data on customer/supplier expectations and for identifying and closing gaps between customer expectations and actual experiences.  It also enables you to bring the overall customer relationship to a new level, where customer needs and requirements are explicitly stated, and value drivers key to the customers success are identified, resulting in positioning the supplier as a strategic asset and proactive innovator.

The Summit Group’s Collaborative Value Clients

Merrill Lynch
Renault/Nissan
Phillips
Albertsons
PepsiCo
ExxonMobil
Citigroup
Daimler Chrysler
Sprint
UBS
Johnson & Johnson
Conoco Phillips
Unilever
Target
IPC
JP Morgan Chase
Citigroup
Albertson’s
ABN
Target Corporation
McKesson
John Deere

Business Alignment Workshop™ (BAW)

BAW is a best practice designed to strengthen the relationships with your top customers and align all account activities around your customer’s highest priorities.

The Creating Collaborative Value process features a structured mechanism to gather data on customer/supplier expectations.  In a joint session with your customer, you identify specific actions both you and your customer can take to close gaps between customer expectations and actual experience.  The result is that you elevate the overall relationship to a new level, where your customer explicitly states their needs and requirements and where your customer works with you to leverage your capabilities that most impact their success.

This session is designed to improve customer supplier relationships either internal or external to your organization.  It is particularly effective for sales and sales support teams concerned with improving customer relationships.  CCV establishes a foundation for joint planning with the customer.  It is also effective for members of support divisions interested to better understand and satisfy customer needs, improving relationships and to achieve a more cooperative relationship with your targeted customers or market segments. 

Participants would include sales, customer service, marketing and other groups directly engaged with the customer.  It might also include representatives of other divisions whose capabilities would enhance your overall value offer to the customer.  As a result of this engagement, your customer is no longer a consumer of your services.  Your customer is now a co-creator of value, by helping your organization execute on their behalf, focused on the business objectives that matter most. 

Learning Highlights

Your organization will learn a best practice to jointly engage the customer that includes proven approaches to:

• Assess your product and service strengths and your offer enablers against customer priorities.
• Uncover what your customer values and why.
• Establish cross-functional alignment with your key customers.
• Help your customer assess PBS’s performance against your customer’s “best in class” suppliers.
• Jointly conduct a full relationship assessment and strategy session that addresses and measures the key value drivers of the customer team, the priority of each, and the business impact associated with these value drivers.
• Launch relationships, conduct annual planning, and get deep into your customer’s decision cycle.

Key Outcomes 

The Creating Collaborative Value process is implemented through structured, facilitated sessions with both customers and suppliers resulting in these outcomes:

Creation of a joint strategic plan with full customer engagement and actions for elevating the relationship to “best in class”

• Conduct a full and joint relationship assessment.
• Identify relationship strengths, weaknesses, total account activity, and resource alignment around the areas of highest importance to your customer.
• Identify and prioritize key customer value attributes and define their importance to their business.

Performance assessment

• Clarify supplier performance, measure and compare against customer expectations and your top competitors, identify gaps and develop actions to close gaps.

Redefined relationship and front-end discovery of what matters most to the customer

• Clearly articulate customer/supplier expectations of each other.
• Align account initiatives with the top value priorities of the customer team.
• Drive relationship improvement by creating joint action plans and develop measures to track progress in closing the performance gaps.
• Agree on follow up procedures to ensure continuous improvement of both performance and the overall relationship.

Business Impact

• Increase account revenue and share of customer.
• Expand the relationship to drive higher profit and wider impact.
• Focus resources on the activities that will provide the highest return.
• Identify additional opportunities to serve the customer, leading to new, differentiating offers.
• Improved execution on behalf of the customer.
• Create competitive immunity.

Creating Executive Alignment™(CEA)

CEA is a best practice designed to strengthen the relationships with your executives at the direction of the sales team and align all account activities around your customer’s highest priorities.

The Creating Executive Alignment process features a structured mechanism to gather data on customer expectations and ultimately align appropriate senior level resources to create deep and lasting relationships The result is that you elevate the overall agency relationship to a new level, where your executives are discussing what matters to the customer, and your customer works with your executives to leverage your capabilities that most impact their success.

This session is designed to improve overall agency customer relationships.  It is particularly effective for sales and sales support teams concerned with improving customer relationships.  CEA establishes a foundation for senior level strategic dialogue with the customer.

Learning Highlights

Your organization will learn a best practice to jointly engage the senior level resources of PBS with those of the customer that includes proven approaches to:

• Plan executive dialogues for different customer levels.
• Uncover what your customer values and why.
• Establish cross-functional alignment with your key customers.
• Prepare for executive dialogue meetings.
• Create customer value agreements.
• Develop core business metrics.
• Articulate a “third box” dialogue.
• Develop an understanding of the customers business.
• Gain executive engagement and access.
• Launch relationships, conduct annual planning, and get deep into your customer’s decision cycle.
• Establish and build credibility.
• Develop the value offer.

Key Outcomes 

The Creating Executive Alignment process is implemented through structured, facilitated sessions with account managers and their teams.

Key outcomes are:

Creation of a joint customer value agreement.

• Identify relationship strengths, weaknesses, total account activity, and resource alignment around the areas of highest importance to your customer.
• Identify and prioritize key customer value attributes and define their importance to their business.

Development of a complete executive meeting plan.

Redefined relationship and front-end discovery of what matters most to the customer.

• Clearly articulate customer/supplier expectations of each other.
• Align account initiatives with the top value priorities of the customer team.
• Agree on follow up procedures to ensure continuous improvement of both performance and the overall relationship.

Business Impact

• Expand the relationship to drive higher profit and wider impact.
• Creates differentiating dialogue between senior level contacts.
• Imbeds you in the strategic direction of the agency customer.
• Improves customer’s view of the role and scope of PBS in their direction.
• Focus resources on the activities that will provide the highest return.
• Identify additional opportunities to serve the customer, leading to new, differentiating offers.
• Improve execution on behalf of the customer.
• Create competitive immunity.