The Primary Enterprise Function

Peter Drucker famously said, “Because the purpose of business is to create a customer, the business enterprise has two – and only two – basic functions:  marketing and innovation.  Marketing and innovation produce results; all the rest are costs.”  Few companies have a thoughtful value-creation process and even fewer are truly customer focused.  Achieving that starts by employees understanding the meaning of “customer value”  The attached viewgraphs (below) address some of customer value’s most basic features.  This presentation was developed with Harry Cook when we were on the GM Science and Technology Advisory Board.  The applied examples are all due to Harry.  Any additional thoughts or comments are greatly appreciated. 

Customer Value Curtis Carlson 2019