But their diligence and understanding of the business typically get little recognition. Whenever anything goes wrong with what they’ve bought, they get blamed. They’re under pressure to complete these transactions as quickly and efficiently as possible. People responsible for nonstrategic purchases have difficult, often thankless, jobs. The justifier, or tiebreaker, helps the purchasing manager demonstrate to senior leadership that he or she is making a contribution to the business. A distributor of standard technical parts might put labels with the customer’s own part numbers on packaging, eliminating the hassle and cost of translating the distributor’s numbers to the customer’s inventory system. A construction company might offer to assign a client a senior project manager with whom it’s had a successful experience, so the client would feel assured that the work wouldn’t need to be audited and would be done on time and safely. A car-leasing company, for instance, might give customers the option to cancel a certain number of contracts prematurely without penalty. A justifier’s value to the customer is self-evident and provides a clear-cut reason for selecting one supplier over others, effectively breaking the tie among the final contenders. But it turns out that customers are looking for neither of those things.ĭuring a three-year research project, we discovered that when purchasing managers ask for something more, they are actually looking for what we call the justifier: an element of an offering that would make a noteworthy difference to their company’s business.
They’ll respond with the well-worn tactic of stressing features their offerings have but competitors’ lack, and when that doesn’t work, they propose price concessions. Many suppliers misunderstand this request. Then, after they’ve winnowed down the contenders, they often ask the finalists to offer “something more.” Recognizing that most products and services they buy are not strategic to their businesses, they begin by simply seeking suppliers that will meet their basic specifications at a competitive price. The right justifier can win you more business-and even help you launch a new one.Ĭustomers in B2B markets are becoming increasingly sophisticated about purchasing. To uncover justifiers, you should explore how customers use your offerings, learn about their priorities and those of their customers, and look at ways to integrate your offerings with other suppliers’.
The justifier provides a clear-cut reason to select one supplier over others and breaks the tie among the finalists on the short list. A car-leasing company, for instance, might offer the option to cancel a number of contracts without penalty, or a delivery service might print customers’ logos on their envelopes. How, then, do you win their business? The authors’ research with 46 companies points to a solution: After meeting the customer’s basic specs within an acceptable price range, give the purchasing manager “a justifier”-an extra that provides obvious value to the business. The problem is, the features touted often don’t matter to purchasing managers, and neither do price concessions. In B2B markets, suppliers of nonstrategic products and services tend to assume they have only two options for landing sales: stressing their offerings’ unique characteristics and competing on price.
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