Customer value proposition (or CVP for short) is one of those words that are used frequently with little agreement on what they mean. On joining MAC, one of the first things I wanted to understand was what I could promise clients that would meet their needs, whilst at the same time differentiating us from competitors. Conversations around the firm revealed two things: there is no consensus on the meaning of the term “CVP” and, we are not always in agreement about why clients should buy our services.

For me, a CVP can be articulated at three levels. The first approach provides all the reasons a client should buy us. Typically this results in a slew of liberally sprinkled terms like “professional, dedicated and responsive”, and (tautologically) “value-adding”. The problem is that these terms could be used to describe just about any consulting firm, as they fit the broad expectations of any client buying consulting services (no-one goes around touting themselves as “unprofessional, slow, uncommitted and value destroying”!)

Interrogating a CVP at the second level involves comparing ourselves to our competitors by asking the question, “when considering you relative to your competitors, why should I buy your services?” My experience of MAC suggests three important reasons why customers should select MAC over and above competitors. These include our ability to develop a deep understanding of our customers, enabling us to co-create solutions with them; our knowledge of and experience in the mining and energy industries; and our expertise in moving beyond analysis and conceptualisation into implementation, resulting in our customers not just talking about their issues, but actually solving them. I also believe that clients value us for our consistency, pragmatism and appetite to work with them to solve any problem, whether large or small.

The third level at which CVP can be articulated, gives the single most important reason why a client should choose us. Although all of the above are important, I believe that our most important differentiator is our ability to consistently work with our clients through ups and downs to enhance their business performance. For MAC to deliver on this promise of value, there are a few things we need to do to safeguard our brand. Primarily, we must ensure that every consultant sees their role as building a relationship with a client, in order to strengthen the client’s business. Being an expert in a particular Centre of Excellence (COE) is not enough. We need to differentiate ourselves from consultants who promote on product capability alone and become experts in working with individuals and groups to unleash their potential. This typically means that we’ll spend less time in MAC teams and more time in client teams. But if we don’t recognise that our clients’ appetites for consulting teams who descend, deliver an off-the-shelf solution, and depart leaving them to implement, is diminishing with every recessionary day that passes, we’ll be in trouble.

Maintaining relationships means that we have to be brilliant at sharing information across client-facing consultants, have the emotional intelligence and integrity to build client trust, and continually grow our skills in order to ‘up’ our client’s game. But evidence suggests that’s all a day’s work for a MACer!