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Chapter 6: The Relationship Development ... > Crisis and opportunity management
The value question
The value question is, What value is this relationship delivering for this organisation over the alternatives?
Any idiot can reduce a price by 10 per cent to become more competitive, but if you can offer an electric power transmission cable under the Baltic one year earlier than your competition, that is of tremendous value to the customer, and your competitor can’t touch you.
Percy Barnevik, Chairman, Asea Brown Boveri (ABB)6
How do you keep the financial bean counters, nay-sayers, cynics and occasional saboteurs from cutting short your brave new world expeditions with their corporate stories on the relationship’s credibility and overall net value?
The value for money question is one of the biggest challenges in sustaining high performance relationships. The fact that many senior executives are under great pressure to deliver continuous and short-term focused shareholder wealth and financial returns continues to adversely impact the quality of their long-term decision making. Is it any wonder that long-term strategic focus often succumbs to the pressures of short-term opportunism? The following true story has achieved legendary status.