The Ends Game: How Smart Companies Stop Selling Products and Start Delivering Value

How companies like Dollar Shave Club and Rent the Runway rewrite the rules of commerce by pursuing outcomes rather than products and services.

The seventh book in the Management on the Cutting Edge series—for business professionals looking to do deliver excellent customer service while maximizing value and revenue.

Would you rather pay for healthcare or for better health? For school or education? For groceries or nutrition? A car or transportation? A theater performance or entertainment? In The Ends Game, Marco Bertini and Oded Koenigsberg describe how some firms are rewriting the rules of commerce: instead of selling the “means” (their products and services), they adopt innovative revenue models to pursue “ends” (actual outcomes). They examine companies such as:
 
• Dollar Shave Club
• Rent the Runway
• Netflix
• Spotify
• Michelin
• Adobe
• Pearson
• And many more!
 
They show that paying by the pill, semester, food item, vehicle, or show does not necessarily reflect the value that customers actually derive from their purchases. Revenue models anchored on the ownership of products, they argue, are patently inferior.

Marco Bertini is Associate Professor of Marketing at Esade—Universitat Ramon Llula. Oded Koenigsberg is Professor of Marketing and Deputy Dean at London Business School.