The firm examines its costs and performance in each value creating activity and finds out ways of improving it. The firm should estimate the leading competitor's cost and performances and install them as benchmarks against which to compare its own cost and performances. It should also study the 'best of class' practices of the world's best companies, in order to learn from them and improve their own performance.
The firm's success depends not only on how well each department performs its work but how well it manages the core business processes. The core business processes include:
* the market sensing process: activities related to market intelligence
* the new offering realisation process: activities related to developing and launching new high-quality offerings
* customer acquisition process: activities related to segmenting, targeting and prospecting of new customers.
* the customer relationship management process: activities related to building deeper understandings and close relationships with individual customers.
* the fulfillment management process: activities related to ordering, shipping and payment collection. To be successful, firms need to look beyond their own operations and create a superior value-delivery network (also called a supply chain) by partnering with specific suppliers and distributors.
