Focus on customers, not shareholders for long-term success

Daniel Pink is on good form in this accessible article in the Telegraph in which he challenges the widely-held belief that Boards of Directors should focus on maximising shareholder value. Instead, he suggests, the senior management of firms should focus on, and be rewarded by achieving, increases in “customer value”. This raises some interesting questions about corporate objectives. How might you set objectives that determine whether customer value has increased? How do you measure it other than through traditional financial means? How are senior management to be incentivised and rewarded?