The Cambridge Value Mapping Tool
Is your business getting the full benefit of the value you create for your customers and other stakeholders?
Could your current business model be actively destroying value for others, potentially compromising the firm’s ability to capture value in the long term?
Do you understand the tangible and intangible value exchanges that take place with you customers, partners and stakeholders?
Mastering how value is created in a business is essential to the long-term success of any company. A business model expresses how a company creates, delivers and captures value. Being able to recognise where value is being captured and where it is not, therefore, plays an important part in business model innovation.
The Cambridge Value Mapping Tool has been developed and refined over the last five years. It uses a structured and visual approach to identify ‘value uncaptured’ in the form of failed value exchanges: value missed, destroyed, surplus, and absence. The exchange of value is analysed through the lens of each stakeholder in the business network, with the natural environment and society each being given its own voice and stake in the business.
The tool gives practitioners a new way to gain a deeper understanding of value and create new economic, social, and environmental benefits for their business. It has been widely used in industry both through group workshops and bespoke in-house workshops. The tool is also used as teaching material at the University of Cambridge and other academic institutions.
The Cambridge Value Mapping Tool takes you in a guided step-by-step process through the following questions:
| 1. | What is the unit of analysis eg product, service, company, industry? |
| 2. | Who are the stakeholders for the unit of analysis? |
| 3. | What is the purpose of the unit of analysis? |
| 4. | What is the current value captured? |
| 5. | What is the value missed and/or destroyed? |
| 6. | What is the value surplus and/or absence? |
| 7. | What are the new value opportunities? |
The Cambridge Value Mapping Tool was developed at the IfM’s Centre for Industrial Sustainability by a research team led by Professor Steve Evans. Originating from the EU FP7 SustainValue project, the tool since has gone through multiple conceptual and visual iterations. Acknowledgements for their contributions go to Dr Padmakshi Rana, Dr Samuel Short, Dr Nancy Bocken, Dr Dai Morgan, Dr Miying Yang, Lloyd Fernando, Dr Doroteya Vladimirova, Dr Curie Park, Fenna Blomsma and Dr Maria Holgado. Particular thanks to all industry collaborators who took part in the development, testing and refinement of the tool.
