I was at Fedex this morning and while waiting for them to complete my job, I browsed through one of their new offers “File, Print Fedex Kinkos“.
It was, in a nutshell, a very compelling offer. A few months ago, I was
shipping printed copies of my manuscript all over the place to get
endorsements. With this service, if I need to do that, I could print to
a Fedex location closest to the destination and ask them to ship it via
Ground – all with the click of a button.
That’s convenient and time saving. This is a classic example of
leveraging the value chain. In other words, they have extended their
service to do more things that the customer would have done separately.
In that process they bring unprecedented convenience and time saving.
For those of you who got interested in leveraging the value chain,
don’t miss another classic story of Cardinal Health. Here is the link for a shorter version.
If you want to read the longer version, you have to read one of my favorite books How to grow when markets don’t
You don’t need to be a very large company to apply the principles
behind Leveraging the value chain. All you have to do is look at how
your customers are using your product and/or service internally and see
where else you can extend your reach.
Good luck!