Value Creation
Stage 3 · Offer and value proposition
Value Creation
Value Creation quantifies the economic value your offer creates for a customer compared with their next-best alternative: savings, extra revenue and reduced risk. It is the foundation for value propositions and value-based prices.
Questions it answers
1How much is our offer worth to this customer?
2What is their next-best alternative?
3How should value be shared along the chain?
How it works
The steps teams follow in our programs and projects.
Step 1
Pick the alternative
What the customer would do without you.
Step 2
List value drivers
Costs saved, revenue gained, risk reduced.
Step 3
Quantify
Put numbers on each driver, per unit or per acre.
Step 4
Share value
Decide how much to capture in price.
What you get
The output
A value calculation per unit, with the difference against the next-best alternative.
Where AI helps
Where judgment decides
Gathers cost and performance data for the calculation.
Validates the numbers with customers and decides how much value to capture.
From our client work
How clients apply it
Paraphrased and anonymized from recent programs and engagements.
Application 1
Value proposition and value creation are the area clients most often call their weakest, even when other tools are well used.
Application 2
A crop nutrition launch team used value creation to set a farm-gate price and a channel split that worked for everyone.
Application 3
A device business quantified true value in the customer's eyes before setting a launch price.
Point of view
Seen in the market
All points of view →Recent Market Edge points of view that apply this tool.
Procurement and pricing · August 2026
What does AI-driven procurement mean for B2B differentiation and price premiums?
As buyers automate supplier comparison and technical evaluation, they remove many of the human touchpoints where B2B differentiation is created and explained.
Read →Agriculture · September 2026
What does record farm debt mean for agricultural input suppliers?
US net farm income is down about 16% from its 2022 peak while farm sector debt has reached a record, so growers are optimizing return per acre and cutting input costs.
Read →Value and differentiation · April 2026
Which purchase criteria actually drive B2B buying decisions?
Most technical performance criteria in B2B applications are table stakes: every credible supplier meets them.
Read →Linked tools
The output of one tool becomes the input to the next.
Builds on
Where it's used
Academy program
Pricing
See dates →Expertise
Pricing & Value
Explore →Problem it solves
Engineers in commercial roles
Read more →Problem it solves
Sales and rebate led for years
Read more →Problem it solves
Prices drift to cost-plus
Read more →Problem it solves
New products launch underpriced
Read more →Situation
Pricing a new product launch
How we help →Situation
Moving from commodity to specialty
How we help →Questions about Value Creation
What is the next-best alternative?
What the customer would do if your offer did not exist: a competitor, an older method, doing it themselves or doing nothing.
Is the tool free?
Yes. The Value Creation Tool is available as a free download.
Other tools in stage 3: Competitive Assessment · Value Creation · Value Proposition builder · Right to Win · Product lifecycle and portfolio
Want to use Value Creation on a live plan?
Book a 20–30 minute sounding board conversation with a senior consultant who has sat in your seat. No cost, no commitment.