Something momentous just happened in the business world.
For over fifty years the focus of a commercial organisation was to maximise shareholder value. In August 2019, The Business Roundtable (CEOs of over 180 major US companies) decided to change it!
Shareholder value has been re-positioned as the result or reward for getting other things right, not the end. It is widely accepted pursuit of the latter has seriously damaged the face of capitalism.
Now, the main objective and focus of an organisation should be to create and deliver value to its customers. This makes good sense as customers control the cash flow after all. All that is needed now is a practical toolkit to do enjoy the success that comes from pursuing that key objective.
Jeff Bezos, the pioneer behind Amazon, has always believed in this objective. The man who took his business from a garage to the world’s biggest company within twenty-five years, says that creating and delivering customer value is at the heart of his success formula.
For a fascinating comparison between the Bezos philosophy and the common practice of CEOs e.g. research shows the latter spend just 3% of their time on customer matters etc. https://www.forbes.com/sites/stevedenning/2018/09/17/the-seven-things-a-highly-agile-ceo-does-jeff-bezos/
For over twenty years we have been helping organisations apply aspects of customer economics. This thinking uses the currency of customer value to understand how and why cash flows the way that it does, and how that is changing or likely to change.
Now we have brought all these tried and tested principles, tools and thinking together to create that practical toolkit.