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On IdealityValue
Summary: Growing a business means starting “new” business, either by selling more of the
same or selling new products to new customers/markets. As Peter Drucker already said:
“Because the purpose of business is to create a customer, the business enterprise has two -
and only two - basic functions: marketing and innovation. Marketing and innovation produce
results; all the rest are costs. Marketing is the distinguishing, unique function of the business”.
Abraham Zaleznik on the other hand, stated that many able people in organizations
subordinate real work, i.e. the work of thinking about and acting on ideas related to products,
markets, and customers – to psychopolitics. Social relations and psychopolitics in an
organization get very often more attention than customers. The IdealityValue approach brings
back the focus of a company to accelerate its sustainable profitable growth by combining a
company’s core competencies in Technology + Marketing to satisfy customers’ (un)spoken
needs. In doing so, the environmental impact of the company’s product offering (Eco-
Efficiency) is also taken into account.
1. Introduction - An ever ongoing challenge
for companies in today’s business environment
is how to better satisfy the needs of their
customers compared to their competition,
while at the same time growing in a profitable
way. We are not talking here about companies
like Apple, who truly create markets by
themselves, but we are more referring to
companies who have fixed assets for which
they want to increase their returns.
IdealityValue aligns the company’s core
competencies with their customer needs more
effectively and efficiently. In other words,
IdealityValue accelerates business growth by
an optimal interaction between Technology +
Marketing. Growth can be defined in different
ways, like growth in profit, ROE, ROI, sales,
volume etc. This growth can come from
different areas:
a. Growth from existing products sold to
existing customers in existing markets –
i.e. Business Development (BD) or “sell
more of the same”.
b. Growth from new products sold to existing
customers in existing markets, i.e. New
Product Development (NPD) where solid
and rigorous project management is
paramount together with a clear voice-of-
the-customer understanding to be
successful.
c. Growth from existing/new products sold to
new customers/into new markets, i.e. New
Business Development (NBD) with its
intrinsic issue of market access to these
new customers, remember Machiavelli:
“Nothing is more difficult to achieve, or
more dangerous to do than to introduce a
new order of thinking”. In other words,
think twice…
d. Licensing, Alliances, and Mergers &
Acquisitions (more about this in a separate
white paper).
Another way for a company to grow is via
vertical integration, either via an acquisition or
via a green field approach.
As a company tries to grow and embarks on
the journey of doing new things, like e.g.
developing and marketing new products to
new markets, it very often has to change the
way it does things. This often triggers the
“corporate immune system” and psychopolitics
become the most important thing people focus
on, rather than satisfying a new customer’s
need. It is up to the shareholders, leaders and
managers of an organization whether they
accept psychopolitics. If they do, growth and
innovation will be very difficult. If they decide to
tackle it, it could become even more difficult,
because many social relations within an
organization are often based on psycho-
politics and/or a strong informal hierarchy.
2. Ideality-Proposition – Since IdealityValue
focuses on accelerated growth by an optimal
interaction between Technology + Marketing,
we will introduce here the concept of Ideality-
Proposition based partially on the concept of
Ideality from TRIZ (the Theory of Inventive
Problem Solving). An Ideality-Proposition can
be defined as the ratio of the useful functions
of a product and harmful functions of a
product. Useful functions could be defined as

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those functions that create certain beneficial
features which create a customer benefit for
which the customer is willing to pay. Harmful
functions are undesired and lower the value of
the offering.
3. Value-Proposition – A vast literature
exists on describing value and value
propositions in a qualitative way. In general, a
Value-Proposition is defined as the ratio of the
(perceived) customer benefits and the total
cost of ownership. The customer benefits can
be subdivided in the benefits achieved via the
product, service and the brand.
4. Eco-Efficiency-Proposition – In the 21
st
century no company can justify its existence
without realizing what impact its products have
on the environment. The World Business
Council for Sustainable Development has
defined eco-efficiency as a management
philosophy. In the IdealityValue approach,
Eco-Efficiency is defined as the ratio of the
economic impact of a product offering and its
environmental influence relative to the next
best alternative.
5. The IdealityValue Way of Thinking – This
consists of the following steps:
- IdealityValue-Strategy (IV-Strategy) –
Identifies and describes the company’s
strategy, core competencies and SWOT
analysis. At the same time, the influence of the
company’s psychopolitics is identified and
addressed.
- IdealityValue Scan – identifies/classifies the
different Technology + Marketing initiatives
located in the so-called Ansoff-matrix and
evaluates how they fit with the company’s
strategy.
- IdealityValue Implemention – is the
implementation of the IV-Strategy, at the
same time the different Ideality-, Value-, Eco-
Efficiency-Propositions will be quantified.
A successful implementation of the
IdealityValue way of thinking will ensure that
“Technological + Marketing” resources
collaborate as efficient and effective as
possible resulting in sustainable profitable
growth and create as much as possible
shareholder value.
Jenci Kurja holds a BSc, MSc and PhD in
Polymer Science and Technology. He has held
positions in academic and corporate R&D,
technical service and application development
for the first ten years of his career. The last ten
years, he has held positions in sales,
marketing, new business development
(engineering) and business management. The
last two years he focused on Innovation
Effectiveness and Efficiency.
He has been active in the following industries:
plastic additives and processing, food
processing, industrial textiles, potable water,
and the medical device industry. Further, he
gained substantial experience in operational
excellence in the textile industry. He also set
up manufacturing facilities (China and United
States) for the highly regulated medical device
industry and implementing the relevant quality
management systems (ISO 13485). At the
same time, he led the efforts to obtain medical
device regulatory clearances for the United
States (FDA 510(k)) and the European Union
market (CE marking).
He is (co)-author of more than 15 peer
reviewed scientific papers and holds more
than 10 international patents in almost all
industries he is/has been active in.
Currently, he focuses on Strategic Initiatives
related to non-organic growth opportunities,
including Alliances and M&A.
IdealityValue is his personal branding
initiative.
He currently lives in The Netherlands with his
wife and son.
He can be reached at jencikurja@yahoo.com