Managing business relationships by analyzing the effects and value of different actions

Both business marketers and their customers are deeply concerned with the "value" that is provided by the market offerings exchanged between them. Managers also commonly talk about the "value" to them of their relationships with customers and suppliers. Value is a concept that is commonly used by both practitioners and academics, but it is often unclear what exactly they mean by it. This lack of clarity causes major problems to companies that try to build a coherent relationship strategy. The first aim of this article is to clarify the different aspects of value in business relationships. The article then focuses on a particular way of thinking about value that appears to be useful for managers in their relationship decision making. This is the value that managers assign to the effects of their decisions and actions. The article then includes an analysis of the value that managers assign to the effects of a number of different actions in several case studies. Conclusions are then drawn about how suitable for practicing managers is this way of analyzing value in relationships. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science Inc. All rights reserved.