Creating Value

"The task of business strategy is to make the business more valuable by a specific route: that of targeting profitable customers."

"The stakeholder view misses the point when it debates only how the cake should be divided up between the owners and other stakeholder groups."

"What competes for customers is the offering, not the company."

"Managers will not find it easy to see their companies as a cluster of offerings, because their model of the company tends to consist of a head office and accountable profit centres."

"A definition of differentiation needs to look at the concept from two angles."

"Each offering is likely to be differentiated, and therefore to have a unique private market."

"There are two dimensions in which a business can differentiate the merchandise."

"Differentiation is a distancing designed to reduce the price sensitivity of the offering."

"Some managers tend to think that managing for profit consists of tight control on expenditure, and maximizing sales and profit margins. These measures are the weaponry available to improve current, short term results."

"Business can never afford to stay still."

"If in a particular case we assume that it is worth beginning with the company's key or near-key resources, then the steps are as follows."

"Business strategy creates value only by targeting profitable customers, and any diversification proposal must give priority to that aim."

"Each competitive strategy must be formulated by a personal sponsor who is close enough to the specific customers and competitors of an offering to assess a profitable positioning."