The Value Gap: act now before you struggle to grow

The Hidden Challenge in Every B2B solution

It is easy to overlook the single biggest challenge facing B2B subscription brands. The reason why it is so hard to find useful examples for B2B subscription leaders to apply to their business.

The people who buy your solution are rarely the same people who use it. As a side note, the people who sell it are rarely the same people who support it (or have skin in the renewal).

I was struck by a recent stat in a study:

• What customers need most: Half of customers prioritise help with implementation and deployment.
• What customer success teams prioritise: Aligning on objectives and success plan
  • Source: Bain customer success survey 2024

I get it.

As a customer success practitioner I built a customer success team back in 2003 (Datamonitor) and more recently at a membership transformation (Procurement Leaders) in 2013-18.

That’s why I created different parts of the team to solve for these issues

Approvals / checking the orders aligned with what the customers were solved.

Fulfilment / getting the online delivery ready for the end users.

Communication / messaging to help our customers spread the word around their organisation.

Technical support / focusing on getting the solution used, reacting to issues, then working with other teams to get on a front foot.

Value support / following the account managers plan to embed the solution into the key people and functions and triage

Account managers / working to solve for the goals using different parts of the solution, interacting with our specialist teams

I worked through the delivery of the solution.

At Datamonitor that meant shifting from snail mail to digital and on into specialist teams and off shoring) to get my team time to be proactive.

At Procurement Leaders I shifted a team that was in place – but ticking boxes rather than delivering value.

I focused on value, outcomes, connecting with other teams in the organisation. I worked on pathways to expand, renew, triage and win back.

But unless you’re prepared to invest and figure out where to plug the value leaks, that is at odds with the customer expectation of just getting it set up and configured to their needs.

And while it’s easy to think this gets better by focusing on hand offs from sales to customer success… at the root it’s about how easy it is to get a good enough product set up for your customers.

And this cycles back to the challenge with B2B solutions – they are for multiple people in the organisation, different use cases, various versions of value.

Clicking with multiple functions

Here’s what’s happening:

• Executive sponsors who approved the purchase need business outcomes and ROI – as discussed with convincing people at your company
• Department heads need efficiency and team productivity improvements – as promised
• End users need a solution that’s easy to implement and use daily – and they don’t tend to know why something was bought, what it costs, and how it works

As a consequence your teams will struggle to deliver value across these dimensions. And when value isn’t established at every level, growth stalls—even when your core product is technically strong.

My three connected elements

After years (ok, decades) of working with B2B subscriptions, I’ve developed a simple but powerful framework based on three interconnected elements:

1. Effective Product

A solution delivers clear value across different organisational roles—not features or inputs, but meaningful outcomes for everyone from end users to executives. This changes over time, by regions, and by customer maturity.

2. Measurable Results

Evidence your solution is working across all levels of the customer organisation—from implementation success to strategic outcomes. Optimal solutions will help improve business, and potentially predict better business scenarios.

3. Aligned Teams

Your teams working together – moving in the same direction – to ensure value is delivered consistently to each stakeholder in the customer organisation….across your portfolio of products. Thinking value, not individual P&Ls.

How it plays out I.R.L.

Picture this common scenario:

Sound the gong, we just got a huge deal over the line just before the final whistle blows this quarter! We’ll get the deal processed and see you after the weekend/ holiday to work through it.”

Meanwhile on the customer side, the department head is told to implement it. The end users are told they need to use a new system. Six months later, adoption is low, the department head is frustrated, and the executive is questioning the investment. Your customer success team is stuck dealing with basic implementation issues (“we are constantly fire fighting”) instead of demonstrating strategic value.

This happens because value isn’t being established at every level:

• End users don’t see how the product makes their job easier
• Department heads aren’t seeing the efficiency gains they expected
• Executives aren’t seeing the business outcomes they paid for

Value flows, or it goes

In B2B subscriptions, value must be established and visible at every level of the customer organisation.

When your three elements aren’t connected:

• End users struggle with implementation – look at your ease metrics.
• Department heads don’t see operational improvements – look at your satisfaction metrics.
• Executives question the ROI – look at your Must Have Score (TM)
• Growth stalls despite everyone working hard – look at your employee engagement

But when they ARE connected:

• End users adopt more quickly
• Department heads see measurable improvements
• Executives recognize clear business value
• Expansion happens naturally

A Simple Assessment

Questions about your current approach:

1. Multi level value: How do we know our product delivers clear value to each stakeholder level in our customer organisations?
2. ROI evidence: Can we show each stakeholder group specific evidence they’re receiving the value they care about – enough to get a hell yeh when we ask them if they would renew today?
3. Organisational Alignment: How confident are our teams feeling about delivering value at each level, from implementation to strategic outcomes?

If you’re missing any of these elements, you’ve found your future growth blocker.

The Path to Sustainable Growth

Imagine if:

• Your product demonstrated clear value to every stakeholder level
• You had measurable evidence of success for each role
• Your teams were aligned around delivering multi level value

The result?

• Higher adoption rates across customer organisations (see Proof of Value)
• More champions at different levels (see Must Have Score TM )
• Smoother renewals and easier expansions (see Net Revenue Retention)
• Sustainable, predictable growth (see Gross Revenue Retention)

Your subscription business will benefit from a framework and methodology designed for the multi dimensions of B2B subscriptions, ideally by a practitioner with real life experience…not consultants with no real life experience, or solutions designed for B2C.

This is B2B – different is in our DNA.