Value Proposition Categories – MITICOR
I’ve been working on a way of categorising value propositions for some time. I’ve arrived at something I refer to as MITICOR which I believe represents the atomic value proposition elements.
By this I mean that all business to business value propositions can be broken down into these 7 base elements. I’m sure I will refine this over time but for our purposes these elements allow us to analyse and categorise the different value propositions that vendors use in their go-to-market efforts.
So what do these categories refer to?

Market
Elements categorised as “Market” include value propositions that relate to the organisation’s market or competitive situation, new product or service introduction as well as the organisation’s marketing efforts such as awareness, public relations or image.
Income
“Income” includes any offer that proposes to increase or sustain existing revenue. In addition new revenue streams fall into this category.
Time
“Time” relates to any value proposition that reduces the time it takes to achieve some organisational objective. Importantly this does not refer to reducing the time to achieve a tactical objective as this would likely be categorised under Operational below.
Institutional
Institutional value propositions relate to the organisation as an entity. Chief amongst these are value propositions that deliver value to shareholders. Taxational or political issues such as “green” policies also come under this heading.
Cost
Reduction in costs, offsetting costs and cost restructuring all fit under this value proposition category.
Operational
Propositions that deliver positive changes to the operational efficiency of the organisation come under this classification. Included in here would be propositions that provide visibility into the current operational effectiveness of the organisation.
Risk
The removal or mitigation of risk at a corporate, personal or project level falls under this value proposition classification.
Multiple Categories
Specific value propositions that vendors create will break down into one or more MITICOR category. It may be that a value proposition from a vendor relates to only one MITICOR category but it is likely that it will break down into more than one MITICOR category.
Examples
I’ve listed below some examples of vendor value propositions and the MITICOR categories that they break down into.
| Value Proposition | Potential MITICOR Categories |
| Reduces development time | Operational, Cost |
| Reduces development time allowing products to be brought to market quicker | Operational, Cost, Market, Time |
| Reduce corporate carbon footprint | Institutional |
| Reduces power consumption and corporate carbon footprint | Institutional, Cost |
| Provides insight into current financial position | Operational, Risk |
| Opens up new market opportunities | Market, Income |
| Allows enterprises to differentiate themselves | Market, Income |
| Increases service provider sales | Income |
| Organisations no longer need to purchase expensive dedicated hardware but can instead rent space in our data centres | Cost |
I wanted to document this classification in this blog because I will refer to them in future REPAMA research. I’ve also noticed during the course of my research that there are some very predictable value propositions/MITICOR element combinations. In a later blog I will try to document these MITICOR “chains” and specifically how they relate to the members of the decision making unit (DMU).
Danny Goodall.
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