Adding Value

To add value, be involved with the process that adds value. Many companies now say implicitly or explicitly, " You must either make something or sell something, or we can't hire you or keep you."

The true purpose of any company is to create products and services that increase the quality of life for all the customers they serve.

Companies make money by bringing a product or service to the market. They take inputs and value. Value is added through various processes, including product or service development, purchasing and production, marketing and sales, distribution and delivery and customer service. For example, narketing includes market research, pricing decisions, promotional efforts, and public relations among others. One of these could be your core skill to add value.

An almost surefire way to amximize your value added is to (a)be involved in a process that is essential to your employer and (b) do all you can do to improve the process continually. Involvement in a process without improving it makes you, at best, a caretaker.

If the process is essntial- like desktop publishing in a publishing company, for example- it must be efficient and effective as possible or you'll be replaced. If, on the other hand, the process is not essential, even if you improve it you are not adding much value.

This means that when you go to work for a company as an employee, you should quickly learn what the company sees as essential processes. These will often be the company's "core cpapabilities." They may center on technological processes or marketing or sales or distribution or whatever. Then you should determine the extent to which your core skills will help make those processes more efficient, more effective or both.