HAMILTON E-NEWSLETTER
July 1, 2003

The Value Triangle: The Difference Between Great Companies and Everyone Else
In the abstract, most managers would agree that brand, pricing, and sales strategy are important components of creating the perception of value in the marketplace and capturing that value. In exceptional companies, management understands that these three factors must be managed in concert, creating what we call the "Value Triangle." Without coordination, companies can miss substantial volume and profit opportunities.

CRM Technology Doesn't Create Better Customer Relationships-Organizations Do
In this recent article from the Sloan Management Review, Wharton's George S. Day asserts that customer relationship management (CRM) technology alone will never deliver great customer relationships. Rather, close customer connections--those that distinguish the top performing companies from everyone else--come from three organizational components: orientation, configuration, and information.

Activity-Based Costing: Fundamental to Sound Pricing and Product Line Decisions
This HBR classic from 1988 is Robin Cooper and Robert Kaplan's seminal article on ABC. In it, they argue that companies need to revise their cost accounting systems--towards an activity-based costing model--in order to accurately assess where profits are really being generated and lost. Products that may look like "winners" due to the under-allocation of fixed costs actually can be major drains on profits.

CLICK ON THE HEADLINES to view the full text of Hamilton's article or the summary of the article above.

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