In today’s crowded marketplace, customers aren’t just asking “What does it cost?” — they want to know “What’s the value?” That’s where Value Management comes in. It’s a discipline that helps all customer teams shift the conversation away from features and price tags and toward measurable business impact.
To explore this more deeply, I sat down with the experts at Shark Finesse Ltd, the AI-powered customer value management software behind QorusDocs Value Management. This team has been pioneering the philosophy of value selling for over two decades. In the conversation below, they share what Value Management really means, why it’s more relevant than ever, and how their platform helps organizations prove — and deliver — the value customers expect.
Now, let’s dig into what they had to say.
- Let’s start with the basics — what is “Value Management,” and why has it become such a critical discipline for sales and proposal teams today?
Value Management is a strategic business discipline focused on defining, quantifying, communicating, and realizing the value a product or solution delivers to customers, and, in many cases, to the selling organization as well.
It moves sales and proposal teams beyond simply describing product features or benefits, towards building a clear, evidence-based business case that demonstrates measurable outcomes such as cost reductions/avoidance, or revenue/margin growth.
In today’s competitive environment where budgets are tight and every investment must be justified, buyers expect sellers to position the value according to their goals and challenges, that’s why Value Management has become essential. It gives sales teams the tools and confidence to have value-led conversations with senior stakeholders, strengthens supplier credibility, and ensures decisions are based on financial impact. - From your perspective, what’s the philosophy behind “value selling”? Why is it so important for building long-term customer relationships?
By focusing on value rather than features, companies earn trust with senior decision-makers and align their offerings with the customer’s real business priorities. This approach is vital for building long-term relationships because it establishes transparency and accountability from the start.
Customers see a value-led engagement as a genuine commitment to their success, and both sides are equipped with the evidence needed to sustain and expand the partnership over time. - How does Value Management differ from traditional sales methods that focus mainly on product features, pricing, or discounts?
Traditional sales often emphasize features, pricing, and closing the deal. Value Management flips that script.
Instead of concentrating on what a product does, value management emphasizes how it enables customers to achieve their strategic goals and overcome their business challenges. It helps engage new stakeholders, using data-driven inputs, and continues post-sale to track and prove value.
In contrast, traditional sales typically ends at the transaction stage and prioritizes closing deals over demonstrating sustained customer success. - What are some common challenges organizations face when they try to articulate or quantify value for their customers?
One of the most common challenges that organizations face is translating technical features into measurable business outcomes that resonate with decision-makers. Many teams lack a structured framework or consistent methodology for building credible, data-driven business cases, which can result in vague or unconvincing ROI claims.
Accessing the right customer data is often another hurdle, without detailed insights it’s hard to quantify savings, efficiency gains, or revenue impact accurately. When value is identified, teams frequently struggle to communicate it clearly and confidently, especially to executives or finance stakeholders who expect concrete, defensible metrics.
Another challenge arises from reliance on Excel-based methodologies, which many customers bring from prior experiences:
- Customers do not always trust the numbers.
- Customers often do not interact with spreadsheets, meaning business cases are usually created for them, not with them.
- Excel tools cannot scale easily and are hard to standardize, making knowledge sharing difficult.
- Updating or changing these tools is challenging, often leaving only one person in the organization who fully understands how they work.
- Creating outputs in different formats is time-consuming, because manual updates are required whenever edits are made in the original spreadsheet-based tool.
- How does QorusDocs Value Management help customer teams overcome those challenges in a practical way?
QorusDocs Value Management helps customer teams overcome the common challenges of articulating and quantifying value by providing a structured, scalable, and collaborative platform for building out value assessments.
Unlike traditional Excel-based approaches, QorusDocs Value Management allows teams to create data-driven value models that are standardized across the organization, ensuring consistency, accuracy, and trust in the numbers. It enables real-time collaboration with customers, so business cases are built with the client rather than for them, increasing engagement and credibility.
The software also makes updates and scenario modelling simple. Multiple stakeholders can adjust assumptions or inputs without breaking the model, eliminating dependency on a single “spreadsheet expert.” Outputs can be automatically generated in multiple formats (Word, PowerPoint, Excel as well as interactive surveys), saving time and reducing manual effort.
By providing a centralized library of validated templates and reusable components, QorusDocs Value Management promotes knowledge sharing, standardization, and efficiency across sales and proposal teams.
Customer teams can confidently demonstrate measurable ROI, scale value discussions across multiple deals, and focus on strategic conversations that build trust and long-term customer relationships. Turning value selling from a manual, error-prone process into a reliable, repeatable, and highly effective capability. - Can you share an example of how a company has used the software to change a conversation from cost to value, and the impact this had on their deal outcome?
A UK-based Microsoft partner recently transformed a new opportunity with a manufacturer seeking a Dynamics 365 Finance solution, to more than three times the original budget. By engaging the customer in value-based discussions, they uncovered significant revenue-based benefits related to spare part margin visibility for product maintenance deals which exceeded all other benefit areas already quantified.
This value-focused approach opened deeper conversations into their business operations creating a bigger business need and resulted in an upsell of additional licenses as well as professional services. - We talk about QorusDocs Value Management as part of the QorusDocs platform. What does that mean in practice, and how does it go beyond just being a “point solution”?
In practice, value management is a value philosophy and a shared journey with customers to help embed all concepts of value selling throughout the sales cycle. As we like to say: “Prove It, Propose It, Win It”, which reflects how we build value into each and every proposal to help our clients win deals. QorusDocs platform is supported by effective on-boarding and consistent use of value management concepts.
Adopting a holistic mindset on value selling, endorsed and mandated by C-Suite will build the value selling DNA across the company. This leads to an inclusive attitude that is supported by everyone, from marketing, sales engineers, sales and customer success to help democratize platform usage and simplify the sales journey. It also enables deeper, more analytical value discussions when and where deals require it. - How does Value Management connect with proposal creation and RFP response? What’s the advantage of having value insights integrated directly into those processes?
Value-based selling helps align value with every stage of the sales process and keeps the focus on measurable business outcomes, the foundation of an effective sales cycle. In typical B2B engagements, proposals, pricing quotes, and RFP responses play a critical role in communicating that value.
In many organizations, the true value proposition is often not accurately quantified across all stages of the sales cycle. QorusDocs Value Management bridges this gap by connecting each element of the sales process to the customer’s defined outcomes, ensuring that every proposal and engagement clearly articulates and reinforces the real value of the investment. - What role does AI play in making value selling and value management more scalable for teams today?
Although value management software has made quantifying value much easier and scalable, big challenges remain when it comes to company-wide teams leveraging the relevant insights and benefits captured in prior business cases. AI is extremely helpful when it comes to surfacing this information via deal data such as industry, role, department and so on.
Another major hurdle when it comes to value management is conducting benefit research, finding reliable sources, and turning a calculated business case into a compelling value story for different audiences. AI is changing the game when it comes to value research, accelerating the buildout of benefits and business cases while also enhancing storytelling by crafting specific messaging for key decision makers. - Finally, looking ahead — where do you see the discipline of Value Management evolving over the next few years, and how is QorusDocs shaping that future?
As more products and services flood the marketplace, the need to differentiate and prove the value of investments will only increase. While AI will make obtaining and analyzing information much easier, trust as the foundation of all good sales will remain. This will mean that the human element (how well a seller is able to position their offering against alternative decisions) will be even more critical to successfully closing a deal.
If organizations aren’t using value-centric tools, built to facilitate engaging and outcome driven conversations across the entire lifecycle of a buyer, they will be at a disadvantage in the years to come. The discipline of Value Management will need to transform to fully support this wider lifecycle, not just at new customer acquisition, but seamlessly integrating across all buyer touchpoints. To do this, teams or solution providers must build and connect tools and data that enable meaningful value capture, analysis, sharing, and communication for all stakeholders.
Build Your Business Case
Value Management isn’t just a buzzword; it’s a mindset and a practice that can transform how your organization approaches every sales conversation, proposal, and customer relationship. As the QorusDocs Value Management team makes clear, it’s about moving beyond features and functions to show the tangible business outcomes your solution delivers.
Ready to see how you can put Value Management into practice? Explore the QorusDocs Value Management to learn how to build compelling, value-driven cases that resonate with decision-makers.
With the right approach and the right tools, you can flip the script, from cost objections to conversations about real business impact. (And be sure to book a demo here.)
