The Value Profit Chain: Treat Employees Like Customers and Customers Like Employees - Hardcover

Heskett, James L.; Sasser, W. Earl; Schlesinger, Leonard A.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0743225694 ISBN 13: 9780743225694

Publisher: Free Press, 2003

Synopsis

James Heskett, Earl Sasser, and Leonard Schlesinger reveal powerful new evidence that paying close attention to the employee-customer relationship will enable any organization to be a low-cost provider and achieve superior results -- proving that you can have it all, a goal thought inadvisable just a few short years ago. At the heart of this bold assertion is the authors' indisputable conclusion supported by thirty-one years of groundbreaking research: today's employee satisfaction, loyalty, and commitment strongly influences tomorrow's customer satisfaction, loyalty, and commitment and ultimately the organization's profit and growth -- a quantifiable set of associations the authors call the value profit chain.
In what may be the most far-reaching study ever undertaken of the strategic importance of the employee-customer relationship, Heskett, Sasser, and Schlesinger offer profound new insights into the life-long value of both employees and customers and the increasingly important concept of employee-relationship management. Readers will discover how organizations as diverse as aluminum maker Alcoa, travel agency Rosenbluth International, and the Willow Creek Community Church treat employees like customers (in the case of Willow Creek, volunteers as well). Conversely, the authors show how advertising agency Merkley Newman Harty and financial services provider ING Direct treat customers like employees, pursuing the ones they want most. At the Vanguard Group, Cisco Systems, and Southwest Airlines, both practices are common. The authors explain how these organizations and many others -- whether large or small, public or private, or not-for-profit -- achieve profitability and growth or the equivalent by leveraging results and process quality to deliver differentiated products and services at the lowest cost.
Timely, essential, and important reading, The Value Profit Chain should be readily accessible on the desk of every forward-thinking manager.

About this title

About the Author:

James L. Heskett is Baker Foundation Professor at the Harvard Business School and co-author with Earl Sasser and Leonard Schlesinger of the landmark bestseller The Service Profit Chain.

Review:

David H. Maister Chairman, Maister Associates, Inc., and author of Practice What You Preach This is an important book. With careful reasoning and the patient unfolding of evidence, the reader is led to a profound understanding of powerful truths about the keys to success, all organized into a readily implementable framework.

John C. Bogle Founder and former CEO, The Vanguard Group, and author of Bogle on Mutual Funds and Character Counts For those leaders who don't believe, The Value Profit Chain will make you a believer. For those who do, it will give you strength to carry on your mission.

Lorenzo H. Zambrano Chairman and CEO, CEMEX The Value Profit Chain eschews platitudes and the stale alphabet soup of management acronyms for practical real-world examples. It takes customer focus to a higher plane through the "hardwiring performance" concept, which effectively illustrates how organizations can achieve superior returns by tying their employees' success to their customers's needs.

Leonard L. Berry Distinguished Professor of Marketing, Texas A & M University, and author of Discovering the Soul of Service Three of our best thinkers on organizational success combine their career learnings in one volume rich in wisdom.

Colleen C. Barrett President and CEO, Southwest Airlines Co. This is a veritable how-to of important ideas for fostering customer ownership and 'hardwiring' performance, methods by which an organization can achieve breakthrough value while preserving a high-performance culture.

M. Bruce Nelson Chairman and CEO, Office Depot, Inc. The Value Profit Chain clearly articulates the drivers of sustainable competitive advantage. Understanding the performance trinity will unlock the keys to truly remarkable growth and results.

Tom Watson Vice Chairman and Chief Growth Officer, Omnicom Group, Inc. Heskett, Sasser and Schlesinger's The Value Profit Chain is a must-read for managers. A simple organizing concept, value chain thinking is an underlying driver of change in our company that has increased value for our clients, employees and shareholders.

Pete Blackshaw Founder and Chief Marketing and Customer Satisfaction Officer, PlanetFeedback, a Division of Intelliseek A refreshing and enlightening detour from the usual media focus on dumb things companies and executives do to set themselves up for failure. The Value Profit Chain deeply explores the habits of overachievers and the successful tactics that help companies win, and win big.

About this edition

• Publisher: Free Press
• Publication date: 2003
• ISBN 10: 0743225694
• ISBN 13: 9780743225694
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 400