Customers, Employees, OR Shareholders?

Some business leaders may struggle to find appropriate balance between customers, employees, and shareholders. Under the pressure of quarterly reporting some executives may ignore and even sacrifice service, brand image, prices, etc. While there is no “silver bullet” and / or single equation for the trio of customers, employees, and shareholders, it is critical to keep company’s business model in mind as a vital guide to appropriate strategies and tactics. For example, if your business is built on low prices, you may reallocate your resources and reduce benefits to employees on the short run to delight your customers with even lower prices. This will drive business success and allow for rewarding employees afterwards. On the other hand, if your business is built on legendary customer service, you need to think twice before reducing benefits to employees or reducing services that are available to customers in a way that would impact moral and / or customer satisfaction negatively. If the business model doesn’t respond to market changes and profit demands, then interventions at employees and / or customers may extend the life of the organization but will not solve the problem.

In a nutshell, do what you have to do to reallocate resources but never jeopardize your business model because you will lose your core customers, and never bargain to lose some of your customers’ base to gain another sector of customers because in most cases gaining a different customer doesn’t compensate for a loss in core customer as a result of a strategy that ignores / underestimates business model and / or core customers.