Customer-Centric on Philip Sheldrake

Talking garbage and the purpose of business

Fri, 15 May 2015 00:00:00 +0000

The third in a series on the topic of the purpose of business. Follows:

Business exists to establish and drive mutual value creation. Steve Denning challenged this statement, preferring Drucker’s assertion that the purpose of business is to create and keep a customer. I responded, and he has challenged my response:

we may be talking about different things: theoretical purpose of a firm and how to run it

“satisfying all the stakeholders” isn’t a viable heuristic to run a firm. See Making Management as Simple as Frisbee

“satisfying all the stakeholders” was tried in mid20thC. It led to Garbage Can firms.

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Garbage

Steve refers to “garbage can firms” in his Forbes article, Is The Tyranny Of Shareholder Value Finally Ending? , an eloquent take down of prioritizing the pursuit of shareholder value. When it comes to garbage it quotes a trio of academics – Cohen, March and Olsen – who in 1972 explained:

Debating the purpose of business

Thu, 07 May 2015 00:00:00 +0000

The second in a series on the topic of the purpose of business:

Steve Denning published an article to the Drucker Forum last week, How The Internet Is Forcing The Humanization Of Work , an argument founded on Drucker’s assertion that the purpose of business is to create and keep a customer.

Steve found my post on the purpose of business post-Drucker via a thread with Kenneth Mikkelsen and tweeted his comments. His first quotes my re-definition of the purpose of business:

[The] Problem with “establish and drive mutual value creation” is that it doesn’t tell me what anyone has to do.

and then :

“Delight customers” as the goal is crystal clear as to what everyone has to do.

and lastly :

Since power has shifted from seller to buyer, “delighting customers” sets priorities right, for firm to survive

I share Steve’s optimism that we may be on the cusp of the potential to possibly humanize work (can my optimism be more tentative?!), but I cannot subscribe to his rationale.

What, exactly, is the purpose of business? An answer post-Drucker

Fri, 17 Apr 2015 00:00:00 +0000

The first post in what turned out to be a series of three on the topic of the purpose of business:

Peter Drucker asserted that the purpose of business is to create and keep a customer. He was right at the time in offering previously inward-looking firms a more appropriate beacon. His dictum is, however, wrong for our time.

The assertion is insufficient in sustainability terms; ie, being concerned with the health and resilience of living systems such as organizations, society and the environment. A customer-centric outlook is too simplistic, simply failing to recognise complexity, and therefore at threat from business that has progressed beyond Drucker’s heuristic.

Customer-centricity

Thu, 06 Feb 2014 00:00:00 +0000

Customer-centricity is an organizational point of view, not a customer point of view. It’s actually the organization-centric-view-of-the-customer. … Don’t you want CRM to help you and the customer mutually, allowing you both to manage the relationship? Surely the value of your understanding how influence goes around comes around is enhanced when those you interact with have similar understanding. Or would you rather propagate the status quo – CRM as a construct to manage the customer?