Managing Customer Value

This paper builds the framework for linking the established work of competitive advantage with the emerging discipline of value marketing. The outcome of this linkage is the concept of strategic value management. Strategic value management focuses on the right combinations of product quality, customer service and fair prices as the key to selling to today’s value conscious consumers. The core of the strategy stresses the firm’s ability to combine and manage these dimensions of value in a way that a strategic value advantage is created and maintained. This advantage provides long‐term profitability for the firm and satisfaction for the customer segment. Three companies that excel at strategic value management, Southwest Airlines, Hewlett‐Packard, and Nordstrom, illustrate how this advantage provides long‐term profitability for their firm and satisfaction for their customer segment. Value oriented actions have been developed to support a strategic value approach.