"Value to the customer" often means different things in different contexts. The most basic of these differences is the contrast in what value generally means in business-to-business markets (B-to-B) vs. consumer markets (B-to-C). We all know what "value" usually means in consumer markets. It has to do with the satisfaction of people's consumption needs, wants, and desires, both at the level of the individual consumer and at the level of the consumer's household.
In business-to-business markets, value to the customer usually means something quite different and less intuitively obvious. In its essence, "value to the customer" in business markets usually means contribution to the customer's bottom line. When one product bests another in delivering greater value to a business, it usually does that either by doing a better job of reducing the firm's costs in some aspect of its operations, or by enhancing the firm's revenues, or by some combination of the two. These improve a firm's bottom line and ultimately determine what "value" means to the business customer.
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