Definition · Future of Selling research
What is Systemic Value?
Systemic Value is the measurable improvement a supplier enables in the customer’s wider operating system across five interconnected dimensions: financial, continuity, strategic, workforce and planetary.
Source: Lemmens, R., & Marcos, J. (2026). Engineering Systemic Value in B2B. Working paper. doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.23436355
The five dimensions of Systemic Value
B2B customers increasingly judge a proposition across all five dimensions, not on price alone.
- Financial — the direct return the deal has to deliver: revenue growth, cost savings and margin improvement.
- Continuity — the operational and supply risk the proposition removes or adds: continuity, the ability to absorb disruption, and compliance exposure.
- Strategic — how the solution supports where the customer is going: growth, differentiation, digitalisation and market position.
- Workforce — the impact on employees, users and stakeholders: engagement, retention, wellbeing and the human cost of change.
- Planetary — the environmental and regulatory footprint: emissions, resource use and exposure to sustainability requirements.
See the five dimensions and the nested-system model in depth →
How is Systemic Value different from ROI?
A return on investment measures the financial result of one deal. Systemic Value keeps that financial return, but adds four further dimensions. The reason is simple: customers increasingly judge a supplier by its contribution to the performance and resilience of the wider system in which the return is created — their end-to-end processes, their value network, their people and the environment they depend on.
The customer’s system is nested. The deal sits inside the enterprise, the enterprise inside its value network, the value network inside society, and society inside the planet. A proposition that only speaks to the deal leaves the stakeholders who own the outer levels unanswered.
Why is Systemic Value becoming important now?
Across the research, one concern increasingly connects the pressures on B2B customers: resilience. Four trends drive it:
- Cost pressure and budget scrutiny — every investment needs a hard financial case.
- Market volatility and disruption — risk matters more than price, and customers want trusted, resilient supply.
- Sustainability and regulation — customers must prove compliance and impact, not just claim it.
- AI, commoditisation and transparency — offers are benchmarked on price unless the full value case is made.
Together these trends raise the standard of proof, widen the buying group and increase the cost of choosing badly. Resilience is the common pressure; Systemic Value describes the dimensions through which a supplier can respond.
How can suppliers deliver Systemic Value?
Through Value Engineering: an organisational capability for keeping the value proposition aligned with changing customer needs. It runs as a continuous cycle:
- Value Design — choose the promise worth making before a deal exists.
- Value Selling — build and prove that promise with a specific customer.
- Value Realisation — make the promise appear in use.
- Value Capture — retain fair value and feed the evidence back into the next promise.
No single salesperson can run this cycle alone; the capability lives in a team with a shared process. A quick first test is the seven-question self-audit: is it your selling, or your value proposition?
Is Systemic Value the same as Regenerative Value?
No. Systemic Value is the current research finding. Regenerative Value is a hypothesis the programme is testing: whether B2B value can move beyond protecting the systems a business depends on, towards strengthening them. It is not an established buying norm. Read about the Regenerative Value hypothesis →