Synopses & Reviews
"
The New Bottom Line shows in a convincing way how attitudes of consumers and employees are changing and how as a business one should adapt and respond to this. We at Unilever have spotted very similar trends around the world through our own thrust of ‘Re-connect with the consumer’ and the book has captured all this eloquently by elaborating on this theme of ‘value in my life’."
Antony Burgmans, Chairman, Unilever N.V"The New Bottom Line provides both an innovative vision of consumer value and a practical assessment of how to achieve it. That is a rare, and highly valuable combination." Jacques Edouard Charret, Directeur General, Groupe-Casino
"An outstanding book which highlights with sublime clarity radical changes in operating results can only be delivered if managers are prepared to fundamentally alter how they think and how they act. This is a must read book." Simon Gulliford, Marketing Director, Barclays Bank
"A breath of fresh air. This innovative and challenging book sets the agenda for consumer facing business for years ahead." Dr Hans-Joachim Körber, CEO, Metro AG
"Generates an exciting new vision of value – and shows how to unleash it." Paul Polman, President Western Europe, Procter & Gamble Europe SA
"This book gives me a completely new look at business development. Today, many consumer products seem to be only raw materials supplied to people who are the manufacturers of their own lives. It shows clearly how to migrate from product-centric to person-centric value creation and shifts the line between commercial and non commercial, to expand both personal value as business value." Ronald van Solt, senior vice-president, planning and strategy, Royal Ahold
"This book recognizes the "old fashioned" bottom line but adds a totally new dimension to the leadership model. It goes back to the essential starting point for all successful business, and asks the question: what is it that our consumer really wants? There, it brings attention to fundamentals such as our desire for true passion, our urge for solutions, our request to make life easy; eliminating complexity, providing tranquillity and giving time to enjoy quality - the exact formula for minimalistic brands of tomorrow." Torben Ballegaard Sorensen, President and CEO, Bang & Olufsen, Denmark
Synopsis
This radical, provocative and inspiring book explores a tectonic shift at the very heart of business. A shift that?s making the old bottom line of corporate profitability the servant of a new master: a new ?person-centric? bottom line of personal profitability or value ?in my life?.
So what? No bottom line? No more profit?
Of course not! Every organization must cover its costs. Every business has to make a profit to survive. The authors of The New Global Line remarkably show that the necessary requirements for doing so are changing, and why this transformation ? containing important elements of both evolution and revolution ? is under way, how it?s undermining the foundations of once-great businesses and brands, and how its throwing up huge new opportunities.
Synopsis
Includes bibliographical references (p. [245]-246) and index.
Synopsis
Modern companies create value from within their operations – such as offices, shops and factories – and sell this value on to consumers. Their common assumption is that the path to improved profitability lies in doing this better and cheaper.
The New Bottom Line shows how the next level of wealth creation, and therefore the opportunity for growth, lies along a different dimension – in helping individuals maximize their personal productivity and ‘profitability’; in driving forward a new bottom line of ‘value in my life’.
This shift from ‘value from our operations’ to ‘value in my life’ fundamentally changes what successful companies do, and how. No consumer-facing business, whether in manufacturing, retailing, financial services, utilities, telecommunications, leisure, media or marketing is immune from its pressures. As the authors convincingly demonstrate, marketing will never be the same again.
About the Author
Alan Mitchell is a leading marketing journalist with a track record of challenging writing in a wide range of publications, including the ‘seminal’ book
Right Side Up: Building Brands in the Age of the Organized Consumer (HarperCollinsBusiness, 2001).
Andreas W. Bauer is Head of Roland Berger Strategy Consultants’ global Consumer Goods and Retail Competence Center. He is a renowned speaker on consumer strategies at industry conferences and author of several books including Success 2000 Plus.
Dr. Gerhard Hausruckinger is a partner at Roland Berger Strategy Consultants specializing in consumer-facing industries and co-head of the firm’s Consumer Goods and Retail Competence Center. He is widely recognized as thought-leader for innovative growth strategies in the FMCG industry.
Table of Contents
Introduction: Designing value around people.
The value earth is moving under our feet. Consumer-facing businesses are facing an era of fundamental change: from product-centric to person-centric.
1. The Value Gaps.
Why today's businesses cannot - or do not want to - meet a whole range of crucial consumer needs.
2. Untapped Assets.
Why these same businesses continually neglect - and miss the value - of a whole range of hugely powerful, personal assets.
3. The New Bottom Line.
How a need breed of businesses are connecting these value gaps to these untapped assets...to transform the business landscape.
4. Trading agency.
How looking at markets, rather than products and services, from the buyer's point of view revolutionizes marketing processes - and its consumer value.
5. Solution assembly.
How helping people to reach their personal objectives, rather than sell them more ingredients, takes value to a new level.
6. Passion partnership.
Why helping people reach personal fulfillment will be a massive new business in its own right.
7. Learning to fly.
Why, and how, the new bottom line requires the emergence of completely new business models - and why migrating towards the new bottom line is not a matter of choice.
8. Let the customer drive your company - literally.
How moving from push to pull adds value while cutting costs.
9. Organize operations around your customer.
How the imperatives of customer convenience and corporate productivity connect.
10. Build partnerships around your customer.
How the new bottom line involves complete supply chains and value networks, not just individual companies.
11. Become a company that works for me.
How the demand for 'value in my life' affects the workplace as well as the market place.
12. Make marketing a service.
How to make marketing effective - by freeing it from its seller-centric bias.
13. A New Vision of Value.
Strategic choices; evolutionary strategies.