At the Value-First Data Summit, we explored how each of the 8 Value Path stages requires fundamentally different data approaches. The Value Creation session revealed something quite unexpected: while this stage is where organizational commitment meets implementation reality, it is often misunderstood or poorly executed, leading to significant issues in customer success.
Value Creation is the critical transition stage where organizations move from a simple commitment to a product or service to its actual implementation. It's here that organizational commitment meets implementation reality, and where most customer success is truly determined—not during the initial sales process.
At this stage, individuals within an organization are thinking, "I need to prove this makes me more effective in my daily work while maintaining my current performance standards." Managers are focused on enabling team adoption while proving departmental improvements, thinking, "I need to implement this across my team successfully while demonstrating measurable departmental value and maintaining team performance." Executives are concerned with proving strategic value while enabling enterprise transformation, thinking, "This needs to demonstrate competitive advantage in market leadership while successfully transforming capabilities across multiple departments."
Traditional approaches often fail because they treat this stage as a simple project management task rather than a complex change management challenge. Sales teams often make promises about productivity gains, but the success team starts with generic onboarding, losing personal context and individual workflow considerations. This disconnect leads to slow adoption and reduced individual confidence. For managers, the lack of a tailored change management strategy results in team resistance and implementation delays. At the executive level, the focus on feature adoption rather than strategic objectives leads to reduced executive confidence and strategic misalignment.
Chris Carolan made several critical points during the session:
Organizations often make the mistake of applying a one-size-fits-all approach to value creation. They fail to recognize the unique challenges and pressures faced by individual contributors, managers, and executives. This misalignment leads to delayed implementation, reduced confidence, and ultimately, failure to realize the full value of the product or service.
Summit experts agreed that what humans actually need is a tailored approach that considers the specific context of their role within the organization. For individual contributors, this means focusing on skill development and workflow integration. For managers, it involves change management and performance measurement. For executives, it requires demonstrating strategic value and competitive advantage.
The cost of this misalignment is high. It can lead to disconnection, decreased productivity, and even the failure of the entire implementation. Organizations must invest in understanding the unique needs of each level within their organization to ensure successful value creation.
One actionable takeaway from the Summit is the importance of preserving level-appropriate context in your data systems. By capturing individual context, team dynamics, and strategic objectives, you can ensure that each level of the organization receives the support they need for successful implementation. This approach not only builds trust but also enables value creation across the entire organization.
Following this introduction, our expert panel dove deeper into the next stage on the agenda: Adoption. Next week, we'll explore how the Adoption stage requires organizations to focus on enabling natural flow and ensuring that the value created is fully realized across the organization.
By understanding and implementing the insights from the Value Creation stage, organizations can pave the way for a smoother transition to adoption, ultimately leading to greater customer success and long-term value realization.