In the Lean Marketing concept Value Streams differ from the more traditional approaches found in other Value Stream Mapping Process. It’s primary focus is not the discovery of waste but of process improvement with a very specific strategic intent, delivery of superior value for the execution of an organization‘s value proposition. This means that the focus of the analysis must be on those Value Streams and processes within those Value Streams that have the most substantial impact on the most important value drivers. These are the drivers that customers are telling you create value.
A Value Stream Map is a comprehensive set of activities and communications that collectively creates and delivers value to the customer. A typical approach to process improvement is to select a process of concern to the organization, map all the details of the process, remove the non-value added activities and then fix whatever seems to be broken. The non-value added activities should be determined from the customer’s point of view. Most organizations focusing on system redesign do so with the intent of reducing costs. 
A VSM begins with a customer need for a product or service, and ends with that customer’s belief that he has received something of genuine value. Value Streams typically are made up of several inter-connected processes and involve any number of functional areas within the organization. A important distinction in Lean Marketing concepts is that the Value Stream Map exists to deliver value to an external customer. This approach in the Lean Marketing concepts of Value Stream Mapping is similar to the traditional approach; we evaluate the entire set of processes, communications, and activities that make up a Value Stream. Employing a flowcharting approach, we describe exactly how value is currently being delivered by the organization and how you can deliver it more effectively and efficiently.
The Value Stream Map (Current State) points out those critical value delivery processes as they currently exist. The map then provides the Value Stream Mapping Team with the template to redesign the value delivery process to:
- Increase the responsiveness of the system
- Enhance its value delivery capacity
- Deliver greater customer quality at a reduced cost to the organization.
The actual skill of Mapping is very learn-able and a skill that can be developed. The keys to effective Lean Marketing using Value Stream Mapping is in mapping the right processes, identifying all process linkages to key customer contacts, making dramatic improvements on key customer benefits, eliminating only those costs that don‘t contribute to outstanding value delivery, and monitoring the impact of those improvements on your market-perceived value proposition. These are only achievable if the analysis is driven by your customer value information. The effects of superior value delivery manifest themselves in a number of different ways. Superior value deliverers can leverage their value position to:
- Increase share of the customer
- Increase market share
- Increase goodwill
- Improve cross selling efforts and results
- Avoid the trap of price competition
- Increase profitability
- Decrease operating costs
- Enhance word of mouth
- Decrease negotiation and bidding of customers
Your Value Streams are the focal point of any significant targeted improvement efforts and should be the driver for enhancing your organization’s competitive value proposition.
Comments are closed.