Suggested Reading

by James Heskett, Earl Sasser, and Leonard Schlesinger

Heskett, Sasser, and Schlesinger asked the question of why a few service enterprises seem to be consistently better at what they do than their competitors. The authors argue that focusing on the employee-customer relationships will enable any organization to deliver results and process quality and still be a low-cost provider. It is their premise that “today’s employee satisfaction, loyalty, and commitment strongly influence tomorrow’s customer satisfaction, loyalty, and commitment and ultimately the organization’s profit and growth.” Heskett, Sasser, and Schlesinger call this quantifiable set of relationships The Value Profit Chain and show that, when it is used as a simple organizing principle, it becomes an effective, fundamental driver of change in any organization. The Value Profit Chain should be read by every forward-thinking manager.