8 Nov 2002

Customer Value Management a new way to profit

A unique series of events was launched, November 6th in Amsterdam, entitled “Creating & Communicating Customer Value”. The series invites marketers in the plastics and chemicals industry to take a fresh look at the manner in which they approach their customers. It is a joint initiative of MarketAbility of Zürich, Switzerland, The European Marketing Group (EMG), Bergen op Zoom, The Netherlands and PMG Europe, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.

As plastics and chemical companies strive to increase their reach, gain new revenue streams and improve existing channels to market profitably, they need to successfully engage with their customers.

Phil Allen, CEO, MarketAbility – the global marketing excellence practice -, claims that only 10 % of companies in the plastics and chemicals industry are really focused on understanding and matching the needs of their customers. A recent survey of over 150 plastics and chemicals companies, conducted by MarketAbility, revealed that over 60% does not carry out any regular research into customers’ needs nor has any form of customer segmentation based around customers’ needs. And a further 30% of companies only carries out irregular customer surveys and/or attempts basic segmentation based on geographic and/or product parameters.

Presenting his concept of “Customer Value Management” (CVM) as a means of redressing the balance, Phil Allen, discussed with the audience the success of companies such as GE Plastics, Dow Corning, BASF, Ciba and Dow Chemicals. These companies are truly engaged in understanding and delivering on their customer’s needs. “CVM starts with what is a very simple concept: understanding your customers”, says Phil Allen “but one that is often ignored. To succeed and win companies need to follow a simple, five step approach: Understand Customers, Commit to Customers, Create Customer Value, Obtain Customer Feedback and Improve Customer Value (Phil Allen also emphasizes the focus of each step on the customer). This is not a one-off strategy but a continuous process that needs to be applied across the whole business”.

A strong factor identified by Phil Allen, in the success or failure of companies to build the right relationships with their customers is communications.

Greg Farrett, President of EMG, a leading PR and marketing communications consultancy serving the plastics and chemicals industry, and Graham Todd, Director of Business Development, PMG Europe, specialists in the management of complex integrated marketing communications programmes at a global level, specifically address how companies should structure and manage communication with their customers.

Focusing on “Getting the message across” Greg Farrett encourages the audience to step back from the immediacy of the communications task; - We’ve got a new product to launch so we need a brochure and a press release now! - and to try and place this in the context of their overall goal of delivering customer value. “Understanding why customers deal with your company and what they expect from you by way of service and product benefits is at the core of any successful communications programme.” says Greg Farrett. “It is the value that the customer wants to hear about not the features.”

Graham Todd, reviews the complexity of ensuring consistency of message and image at a global level and presents a number of processes through which PMG has assisted their customers in the IT and Automotive sectors. This has included developing and maintaining, through the use of content management systems, multi-lingual web sites and literature programmes spanning brochures, technical datasheets and MSDS documentation. “Our present experiences with customers in the plastics and chemicals industry have shown that lack of resources is a major constraint in effectively managing and maintaining communication with customers. This is at a time when access to information, via the web, can be immediate and there is more and more importance on it being available, up to date and accurate. These are problems that we have seen faced an

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EMG
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4612 PS Bergen op Zoom
Netherlands

Notes for editors

Marketability

MarketAbility based in Zürich, Switzerland is the global marketing excellence practice serving a broad base of clients in the chemicals and energy sectors in all aspects of improving business profitability through applied practical marketing and customer value management. Phil Allen, CEO, counts more than 30 years of practical marketing and sales experience, including several in chemicals and plastics . MarketAbility operates both at global and local levels around the world. Phil is the founder of the customer-value management circle of excellence (www.customer-value.com), a learning and sharing organisation for all involved and/or interested in managing customer value and building customer loyalty. He is co-author of the book ‘Value-Based Marketing for Bottom Line Success: 5 Steps to Creating Customer Value’ published by McGraw-Hill in December 2002.

PMG Europe

As an international marketing communications company PMG offers strategic consulting, project management, process engineering and Internet Marketing services, and serves multinational operations seeking to increase the reach and effectiveness of global initiatives.

PMG offers the complete resource for international marketing communications. Through our think global, act local approach, we harness our extensive resources to provide our customers with best value in Web and paper-based communications.

PMG helps organizations achieve their marketing objectives by offering a unique combination of integrated marketing communications services and solutions.

The European Marketing Group (EMG)

The European Marketing Group is a business-to-business marketing communications firm offering a core competency in brand positioning, content development and business/trade press publicity in both Pan-European and global markets. It serves multinational companies in the materials technology, healthcare, chemical, high technology, and industrial business sectors.

EMG has in-depth market knowledge and a strong reputation for delivering results across a wide range of marketing communications disciplines.