From an interview with Porter about this
Posted: Tue Feb 18, 2025 6:05 am
Uber-capitalism is under pressure and as a company you can no longer get away with mediocre products in a nice packaging of marketing and communication (this leads to #FAIL). Michael Porter knows how to capture this buzzing thought of recent times well in a new concept system image, namely that of Shared Value . In this article the online opportunities of Shared Value for companies.I am 31 and highly educated. I know a lot. But I don't know how the mortgage on my house actually works. I also don't know what is in my food and whether it is healthy for me. I don't know how much electricity I have used this week and I don't know whether I should feel guilty about the working conditions in which my iPhone was produced in China. I covet beautiful brands with beautiful products but I actually distrust companies. I don't read small print and I know that this misplaced trust will turn against me the moment I try to call the helpdesk. Or try to get rid of my product. The relationship between company and society is broken. And social media doesn't fix it.
Now that the dust of the economic crisis and that of the social media hype is settling oman phone number list the contours of a new idea of how business, consumer and society relate to each other are slowly becoming visible. Below is an excerpt
Porter's Harvard Business Review article on The Big Idea: Creating Shared Value is well worth reading. Tip: when you download the iPad app it's free!
The old idea: maximum profit with mediocre products & bad service
The old dogma goes something like this: companies strive for economic profit maximization and this in turn leads (again) to social progress. If companies make a lot of profit, this automatically leads to more jobs, more prosperity, better health care, etc. However, this image has started to falter. A lot of profit was for a few major shareholders somewhere far away, while the ultimate low wage was sought abroad and in this way the costs were reduced to a minimum.
Not only was there an aim for optimal short-term economic profit, there was also an aim for a maximum power difference in (legal) knowledge and 'ownership' of media in relation to the consumer and other stakeholders. The greater this power, the more powerful the apparatus of marketing and seduction. As a result, many companies have been able to sell products in essence (with a lot of marketing and small print around them) for a long time, which were not in the best interest of the customer. This has created a deep-rooted distrust between consumer and company.
Now that the dust of the economic crisis and that of the social media hype is settling oman phone number list the contours of a new idea of how business, consumer and society relate to each other are slowly becoming visible. Below is an excerpt
Porter's Harvard Business Review article on The Big Idea: Creating Shared Value is well worth reading. Tip: when you download the iPad app it's free!
The old idea: maximum profit with mediocre products & bad service
The old dogma goes something like this: companies strive for economic profit maximization and this in turn leads (again) to social progress. If companies make a lot of profit, this automatically leads to more jobs, more prosperity, better health care, etc. However, this image has started to falter. A lot of profit was for a few major shareholders somewhere far away, while the ultimate low wage was sought abroad and in this way the costs were reduced to a minimum.
Not only was there an aim for optimal short-term economic profit, there was also an aim for a maximum power difference in (legal) knowledge and 'ownership' of media in relation to the consumer and other stakeholders. The greater this power, the more powerful the apparatus of marketing and seduction. As a result, many companies have been able to sell products in essence (with a lot of marketing and small print around them) for a long time, which were not in the best interest of the customer. This has created a deep-rooted distrust between consumer and company.