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Value creation is crucial brick to building a profitable and sustainable business. It’s what sets you apart from the competition, improves customer retention and brings unique meaning to your brand. Without it, your long-term future and bottom line will be threatened. 

So if my bottom line is under threat without value creation, does that mean it’s just about profitability?

To put it simply – no. Of course, things like improving cost efficiency will likely be important to you, but you should also consider non-financial factors such as:

  • Optimising processes 
  • Increasing employee morale 
  • Boosting customer satisfaction 

How can I create value?

To make your digital transformation efforts a success, you need to work on the overall picture of business transformation. AKA – developing the right mindset and culture where your new technologies can thrive. 

Let’s look at some ways you can do that.

Gain approval from your key stakeholders

Change can seem scary to your people as it normally means changing the way they’ve been used to working for a long time. By engaging all your stakeholders affected by the change – from directors down to the teams working at the coalface day-in-day-out – you can help them see the value of the transition. 

Value creation

When it comes to change, employees usually only want to know what’s in it for them. So, make sure you explain: 

  • What the change is about 
  • How it’ll impact them 
  • What they’ll have to do to facilitate the change

The answers to these bullet points may be different depending on the employee, which is why it’s vital you have a change management strategy in place.  

For example, a priority for your staff running the shop floor each day might be how the change can make their daily lives either. Will the new technology help them track team performance? Or show where they’ve performed well or where they can improve?

You can also find business value in making your people’s roles more enjoyable. For example, technology can handle the manual processes your teams regularly complain about doing, giving them more time to focus on the more creative tasks.

Don’t forget about your suppliers either – they’ll have their own transformation challenges, so spend time understanding each other’s needs. You might be able to create them some savings which help you gain more efficiencies and will ultimately make you a better company to work with.

Align people and mindsets by ensuring your messaging is ‘on target’

To accompany your vision for change, you need to have the support of your leaders as they usually set the vision, messaging, goals and path. Once they’re bought into the vision, they can help promote your ideas and inspire the wider organisation to stay onboard.

Value creation

Keep these tips in mind when communicating the change to your employees:

  • Use second person pronouns – ‘you’ and ‘your’ ensures you’re talking directly to your employees and taking their point of view, rather than the company’s
  • Be clear on what you want your employees to do – think back to the three areas your ‘what’s in it for me’ question should answer. Your teams will most likely only be interested in the ‘what’ and the ‘how’ of digital transformation, rather than the ‘why’
  • Avoid jargons or acronyms – make it as easy as possible for your employees to understand
  • Keep it relatable – by including relevant examples to each of your points, you can make it easier for your people to understand your reasons for change and see it’s a decision worth pursuing

You can read more about the benefits of having an effective change management strategy in place by clicking here.

Always be on the look out for value creation

Value creation doesn’t just happen at the start of your journey – it’s an ongoing process. That’s why you should constantly review that value and evaluate whether you’re achieving that value during your journey.

Also, spend time identifying whether there’s scope for new/other value opportunities along the way. Companies can hunt value on their own, but the chances are they’ll be searching for value they know or have already done internally. By bringing in external people you can add more value to your business case. This is because:

  • They can show you how other businesses have hunted value
  • They can reveal what value processes other companies are currently implementing

At Columbus, we’ve been helping food businesses like yours embrace digitisation for over 30 years. To find out more about what our value creation process looks like with a customer, watch our ColumbusCast episode below.

Watch the ColumbusCast episode

Value creation helps you deliver long-lasting business benefits

It’s not enough to innovate your business alone. You need your stakeholders to be bought into the reasons for change and what’s needed for it to go ahead. And that hinges on value creation and management.

In our value first framework, we outline five key steps to help you ensure successful value management.

Download it below.Value management

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