"Yet in most organizations, strategic decisions are still prisoner to the imperative to spread upstream costs over ever larger product volumes"

Voltando novamente a "Tilt: Shifting Your Strategy from Products to Customers", de Niraj Dawar, encontramos um trecho muito interessante para gerar uma reflexão sobre a intangibilidade da oferta.
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Um consumidor pode aproveitar uma promoção da distribuição grande e comprar um pack de 24 latas de Coca-Cola ao preço unitário de $0.25 e ficar todo contente.
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No dia seguinte, numa tarde de calor, o mesmo consumidor pode aceitar pagar $2 por uma lata de Coca-Cola bem fresca.

"This customer willingly concedes a large price premium, traceable not to a better cola, but to a better way of buying and consuming the cola. Think of what the customer is paying for: he or she does not have to remember to buy the twenty-four-pack in advance, break out one can, find a place to store the rest, lug the can around, and find a way to keep it chilled all the way to the point of thirst in the park. The premium the customer is willing to pay reflects value created and captured by delivering the product for specific consumption circumstances and tailoring the offering to those circumstances. The value the consumer pays for includes what the consumer buys (the can of Coca-Cola), but it also includes how the consumer buys and consumes (the can is sold chilled, in a single serve, at the point of thirst). 

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VALUE = WHAT + HOW
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Since the can of Coca-Cola can be purchased at the warehouse store for $0.25 or in the park for $2, the 700 percent price premium in the park reflects the value that resides in the how. This incremental value is created in the downstream activities of the firm—in its interactions with the marketplace. In this instance, the 700 percent is such a significant increase that, in comparison, upstream exercises to reduce the materials, manufacturing, or inventory costs of each can of cola cannot produce anything comparable. [Moi ici: Estão a ver onde é que a tríade pensa e sabe actuar e, onde este blogue recomenda actuar? Estão a ver porque é que o calçado português aumenta os preços ano após ano?] The sort of supply-chain efficiency that made Walmart so dominant, in contrast, provides between 2 and 5 percent in cost savings. That kind of savings is, of course, extremely valuable when you are playing on an intensely competitive playing field where every penny matters and can add up to significant amounts when you have the scale of a Walmart. But the point of building a competitive advantage in the downstream is to escape that intensity of competition altogether and to think in terms other than production scale. 

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Yet in most organizations, strategic decisions are still prisoner to the imperative to spread upstream costs over ever larger product volumes. They force businesses to seek profitability in thin margins from large scale. The question "How much more of this stuff can we sell?" limits us to what we sell. And it neglects the substantial sources of customer value in the downstream—in the how. The question may be obsolete, but it still weighs on strategy and practice in many businesses in many industries today."