Pov

Not every customer should want you

A B2B strategy becomes stronger when the value proposition is distinctive enough to be highly relevant to some customers and deliberately less relevant to others.

2026 1 min read Author: WalsonParker

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Articles

How leaders can make sharper choices on where to compete, where to invest and what to stop when multiple structural shifts hit at once.

How companies can identify new value pools and build business models that combine differentiated customer value with scalable economics.

Focus

Creating significant customer value does not guarantee attractive economics when suppliers, channels or customers capture a disproportionate share.

A strategically attractive move can become economically destructive when the likely reactions of rivals are excluded from the decision.

Strategic challenges

The same person can make very different choices depending on need, context, urgency, channel and willingness to pay.

The harder problem is concentrating enough talent and capital behind a limited number of opportunities to generate meaningful evidence.

POV

Defensible positioning must eventually connect to capabilities, economics, assets or choices that are harder to replicate than language.

Consumer strategy becomes stronger when the business is explicit about which needs it will serve exceptionally well and which it will not.

Strategic impact

Revenue can expand while promotions, acquisition spending and channel costs quietly reduce the value created by each additional customer.

Milestones matter, but completed activity has limited meaning when the expected operational or economic outcome has not followed.

What we observe

We frequently see new products, segments and geographies added before the core growth engine has become sufficiently repeatable.

We frequently see visible expenses cut rapidly while structural complexity and economically weak products or customers remain untouched.