Shareholder Value – From the outside

Friedman’s Legacy: From Doctrine to Theorem

This essay by Luigi Zingales (University of Chicago – Booth School of Business) offers a useful assessment of the rights and wrongs of Friedman’s shareholder responsibility doctrine.

Zingales argues that part of the problem with Friedman is that his argument is treated as a statement of doctrine to which one pledges allegiance as opposed to a theorem that can be used to analyse and understand what is happening in the real world.

Zingales therefore restates Friedman as a theorem for analysing the conditions under which it would be socially optimal for corporate executives to focus solely on maximising corporate profits. He refers to this as the “Friedman Separation Theorem” and argues that it holds if the following three conditions are met:

First, companies should operate in a competitive environment, which I will define as firms being both price and rules takers. Second, there should not be externalities (or the government should be able to address perfectly these externalities through regulation and taxation). Third, contracts are complete, in the sense that we can specify in a contract all relevant contingencies at no cost.
“Friedman’s Legacy: From Doctrine to Theorem” – Zingales – Pro Market 13 Oct 2020

Whether you agree or disagree with it, one of the great attractions of this doctrine/theorem is that it makes the life of a corporate executive much simpler. That gives the idea an obvious appeal.

Zingales notes that on a technical level, the Friedman Separation Theorem is a restatement of what economists refer to as the “First Welfare Theorem” (also known as the “Invisible Hand Theorem”) which holds that markets produce socially optimal outcomes under certain conditions.

Zingales argues that Friedman also recognised that he needed something catchier for his argument to impact public debate so he framed the argument around an appeal to the core American values of freedom, independence and the principle of “no taxation without representation” embedded in the story of the American Revolution.

Zingales works through each of the three assumptions he has identified as underpinning the Friedman Separation Theorem, highlighting the ways in which the are not valid descriptions of how the economy actually operates.

Zingales sums up his review by posing the question how should we interpret the practical implications of Friedman’s idea in 2020? His answer has two legs. Firstly he argues that we need to distinguish between small to medium size companies and their larger cousins which have power in various forms:

If you are a small to medium-sized company, .., a company with no market power and no real power to influence regulation or elections, maximizing shareholder welfare is the right goal to follow. Especially if this goal is pursued with attention not only to legal rules but also ethical customs, like Friedman advocated, but most companies ignored.

However, Zingales argues that we should also recognise the limitations of the Friedman Separation Theorem when we are dealing with corporate entities, and their executives, which have real power.

When it comes to super corporations, corporations that have market power, like Google and Facebook, or political power, like BlackRock or JP Morgan, or regulatory power, like DuPont or Monsanto, a single-minded pursuit of shareholder value maximization can be extremely bad for society.

This, Zingales argues, is the reason why he and Oliver Hart have advocated requiring boards of monopolies, like Google, or of firms too big to regulate, like Blackrock, to maximize social welfare, the utility of society as a whole, not shareholder welfare.

Zingales concludes that “Friedman was more right than his detractors claim and more wrong than his supporters would like us to believe”:

His “theorem” has greatly contributed to determining when maximizing shareholder value is good for society and when it is not. The discipline imposed by Friedman’s theorem also forces greater accountability on managers. In the world of 2020, the biggest shareholder in most corporations is all of us, who have their pension money invested in stocks. We are the real silent majority. Corporate managers finance political candidates, lobby for self-serving legislation, and capture regulation. They have the power to use our money to fight against our own interest. While Friedman did not anticipate these degenerations, he warned us against the risk of unaccountable managers. This warning will remain his most enduring contribution.

Irrespective of whether you agree or disagree with the proposed solution to the big company problem, Zingales essay is one of the better contributions to the Corporate Social Responsibility and Shareholder Value Maximisation debate that I have come across. It is a short read but worth it.

For anyone wanting to dig deeper, the collection of 27 essays that Zingales references in his essay can be found here.

Tony – From the Outside

What is the alternative to Friedman’s capitalism?

I have been digging into the debate about what Milton Friedman got right and wrong about the social responsibility of business. I am still in the process of organising my thoughts but this discussion on the “Capitalisn’t” podcast is, I think, worth listening to for anyone interested in the questions that Friedman’s 1970 essay raises.

You can find the podcast here

podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/what-is-the-alternative-to-friedmans-capitalism/id1326698855

Tony – From the Outside

Why ESG Investors Are Happy to Settle for Lower Returns – Knowledge@Wharton

I recently flagged a post by Aswath Damodaran on his “Musings on Markets” blog which offered a sceptical perspective on the claims being made in favour of ESG based investing.

The Knowledge at Wharton website has a summary of some research that offers another perspective on ESG and Socially Responsible investment approaches. The research is described as providing “… a theoretical framework for how ESG (environmental, social and governance) investing affects stock prices and corporate behavior.”

The research paper is behind a paywall but you can find the Knowledge at Wharton summary here – knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article/esg-investors-happy-settle-lower-returns/

Tony – From the Outside

Corporate social responsibility – going back to the source

The 50th anniversary of Milton Friedman’s 1970 essay has triggered a deluge of commentary celebrating or critiquing the ideas it proposed. My bias probably swings to the “profit maximisation is not the entire answer” side of the debate but I recognised that I had not actually read the original essay. Time, I thought, to go back to the source and see what Friedman actually said.

I personally found this exercise useful because I realised that some of the commentary I had been reading was quoting him out of context or otherwise reading into his essay ideas that I am not sure he would have endorsed. I will leave my comment on the merits of his doctrine to another post.

Friedman’s doctrine of the limits of corporate social responsibility

Friedman’s famous (or infamous) conclusion is that in a “free” society…

“there is one and only one social responsibility of business—to use its resources and engage in activities designed to increase its profits so long as it stays within the rules of the game, which is to say, engages in open and free competition without deception fraud.”

My more detailed notes on what Friedman wrote can be found here. That note includes lengthy extracts from the essay so that you can fact check my paraphrasing of what he said. My summary of his argument as I understand it runs as follows:

Friedman first seeks to establish that any meaningful discussion of social responsibility has to focus on the people who own or manage the business, not “the business” itself.
If we focus on the corporate executives who manage the business as agents of the shareholders, Friedman argues that these executive should only use the resources of a company to pursue the objectives set by their “employer” (i.e. the shareholders).
What do the shareholders want the business to do?
Friedman acknowledges that some may have different objectives but he assumes that profit maximisation constrained by the laws and ethical customs of the society in which they operate will be goal of most shareholders
The key point however is that corporate executives have no authority or right to pursue any objectives other than those defined by their employer (the shareholders) or which otherwise serve the interests of those people.
Friedman also argues that the expansion of social responsibilities introduces conflicts of interest into the management of the business without offering any guide or proper process for resolving them. Having multiple (possibly ill defined and conflicting) objectives is, Friedman argues, a recipe for giving executives an excuse to underperform.
Friedman acknowledges that corporate executives have the right to pursue whatever social responsibilities they choose in their private lives but, as corporate executives, their personal objectives must be subordinated to the responsibility to achieve the objectives of the shareholders, their ultimate employers.
It is important to understand how Friedman defined the idea of a corporate executive having a “social responsibility”. He argues that the concept is only meaningful if it creates a responsibility that is not consistent with the interests of their employer.
Friedman might be sceptical on the extent to which it is true, but my read of his essay is that he is not disputing the rights of a business to contribute to social and environmental goals that management believe are congruent with the long term profitability of the business.
Friedman argues that the use of company resources to pursue a social responsibility raises problematic political questions on two levels: principle and consequences.
On the level of POLITICAL PRINCIPLE, Friedman uses the rhetorical device of treating the exercise of social responsibility by a corporate executive as equivalent to the imposition of a tax
But it is intolerable for Friedman that this political power can be exercised by a corporate executive without the checks and balances that apply to government and government officials dealing with these fundamentally political choices.
On the grounds of CONSEQUENCES, Friedman questions whether the corporate executives have the knowledge and expertise to discharge the “social responsibilities” they have assumed on behalf of society. Poor consequences are acceptable if the executive is spending their own time and money but unacceptable as a point of principle when using someone else’s time and money.
Friedman cites a list of social challenges that he argues are likely to lay outside the domain of a corporate executive’s area of expertise
Private competitive enterprise is for Friedman the best way to make choices about how to allocate resources in society. This is because it forces people to be responsible for their own actions and makes it difficult for them to exploit other people for either selfish or unselfish purposes.
Friedman considers whether some social problems are too urgent to be left to the political process but dismisses this argument on two counts. Firstly because he is suspicious about how genuine the commitment to “social responsibility” really is but mostly because he is fundamentally committed to the principle that these kinds of social questions should be decided by the political process.
Friedman acknowledges that his doctrine makes it harder for good people to do good but that, he argues, is a “small price” to pay to avoid the greater evil of being forced to conform to an objective you as an individual do not agree with.
Friedman also considers the idea that shareholders can themselves choose to contribute to social causes but dismisses it. This is partly because he believes that these “choices” are forced on the majority by the shareholder activists but also because he believes that using the “cloak of social responsibility” to rationalise these choices undermines the foundations of a free society.
That is a big statement – how does he justify it?
He starts by citing a list of ways in which socially responsible actions can be argued (or rationalised) to be in the long-run interests of a corporation.
Friedman acknowledges that corporate executives are well within their rights to take “socially responsible” actions if they believe that their company can benefit from this “hypocritical window dressing”.
Friedman notes the irony of expecting business to exercise social responsibility by foregoing these short term benefits but argues that using the “cloak of social responsibility” in this way harms the foundations of a free society
Friedman cites the calls for wage and price controls (remember this was written in 1970) as one example of the way in which social responsibility can undermine a free society
But he also sees the trend for corporate executives to embrace social responsibility as part of a wider movement that paints the pursuit of profit as “wicked and immoral”. A free enterprise, market based, society is central to Friedman’s vision of a politically free society and must be defended to the fullest extent possible.
Here Friedman expands on the principles behind his commitment to the market mechanism as an instrument of freedom – in particular the principle of “unanimity” under which the market coordinates the needs and wants of individuals and no one is compelled to do something against their perceived interests.
He contrasts this with the principle of “conformity” that underpins the political mechanism.
In Friedman’s ideal world, all decisions would be based on the principle of unanimity but he acknowledges that this is not always possible.
He argues that the line needs to be drawn when the doctrine of “social responsibility” extends the political mechanisms of conformity and coercion into areas which can be addressed by the market mechanism.

Friedman concludes by labelling “social responsibility” a “fundamentally subversive doctrine”.

But the doctrine of “social responsibility” taken seriously would extend the scope of the political mechanism to every human activity. It does not differ in philosophy from the most explicitly collectivist doctrine. It differs only by professing to believe that collectivist ends can be attained without collectivist means.

That is why, in my book “Capitalism and Freedom,” I have called it a “fundamentally subversive doctrine” in a free society, and have said that in such a society, “there is one and only one social responsibility of business—to use its resources and engage in activities designed to increase its profits so long as it stays within the rules of the game, which is to say, engages in open and free competition without deception fraud.”

Hopefully what I have set out above offers a fair and unbiased account of what Friedman actually said. If not then tell me what I missed. I think he makes a number of good points but, as stated at the beginning of this post, I am not comfortable with the conclusions that he draws. I am working on a follow up post where I will attempt to deconstruct the essay and set out my perspective on the questions he sought to address.

Tony – From the Outside

Costco capitalism

I came across this blog post by Bryan Lehrer titled “Costco Capitalism” which I think offers an interesting variation on the discussion of companies seeking to do good, or even better, to “be” good.

It poses two questions:

whether some companies are built on “structurally fair” foundations that make it easier for them to be perceived as “good” or “fair” companies; and
what exactly does it mean to be an “ethical” company

This extract will give you a flavour of the author’s analysis of the Costco business model

Sustainable Capitalism? – What Costco shows us about the blurry relationship between ethical and fair
Costco shows that … simply providing your customers the feeling that they aren’t getting ripped off, and doing so in a way that matches mainstream views of acceptable externalities, is all that is required for success. If this sounds reductive, it’s because it is. The key to Costco’s success is just how straightforward the alignment of stakeholders within its business model are.
That being said, there are externalities associated with Costco’s business model, even if they aren’t viewed by the mainstream as such. The main thing here is a retail model that promotes rampant consumption, and the fallout from this which includes broad waste and sustainability concerns. Interestingly, because of Costco’s large purchasing power, dominance over its supply chains, and upper-middle class income of its shoppers, it generally has more progressive product standards than other retail brands in comparable price tiers.
Costco Capitalism, Bryan Lehrer

Lehrer argues that the foundation is to provide customers with “the feeling that they aren’t getting ripped off“ thereby building that elusive intangible asset of Trust that many companies routinely include in their statement of corporate values (e.g. “a Trusted Partner”). However, equally important is that the company can do this “in a way that matches mainstream views of acceptable externalities“.

This qualification regarding externalities is the interesting part.

Other companies may have a credible claim to being able to provide a good or service cheaply but the often unasked question is what is the full cost of the good or service; i.e. is the low cost at the company/consumer level based on paying workers a subsistence wage with uncertain working hours, or reliance on an external supply chain with dubious environmental and labour standards. Lehrer notes that Costco could be vulnerable to criticism on a number of fronts (e.g. its business is, at its heart, a mass consumption model) but Costco is protected by virtue of adopting a position which fits community standards. Costco can afford to spend some of its efficiency dividend on progressive product standards but it is not necessarily pushing the boundaries of what might be done because it is also sensitive to what its customers are willing to pay for being good.

This framework (i.e. is our business built on an operating model that is structurally fair) offers a useful perspective when thinking about financial services companies. Initiatives such as the Bankers’ Oath have a contribution to make in addressing the cultural issues in banking but I suspect that there is as much value (potentially more) in exploring the structural features of the industry that create the pressure to cut corners in the pursuit of financial targets.

I don’t expect anyone will change their mind about bankers and banking in general on the basis of this post. I do hope to make the point that there are subtle structural challenges in banking that complicate the capacity to do good. Developing a better understanding of the structural issues is I think essential to crafting a lasting solution to the cultural issues. I don’t have any neat answers but I do feel that the issues covered in Bryan Lehrer’s analysis of Costco offer some insights.

Tony – From the Outside

Company purpose

There has been a lot written on this topic recently, particularly in response to the recent announcement by the Business Roundtable of it decision that corporations should seek to serve all stakeholders rather than focusing on shareholders. I don’t propose to add anything new to the discussion in this post but simply to call out a couple of references I have found useful in trying to make sense of the issues.

This post by Aswath Damodaran offers a useful review of the issues associated with choosing what purpose a company should serve, and what might go wrong as the current debate plays out. Damodaran identifies 5 variations on how companies pursue their purpose

Cut throat corporatism
Crony corporatism
Managerial corporatism
Constrained corporatism
Confused corporatism

“Confused corporatism” is the label Damodaran applies to the “stakeholder” approach. No surprises that he is not a fan. This extract from his post captures his core arguments.

“I know that this is a trying time to be a corporate CEO, with people demanding that you cure society’s ills and the economy’s problems, with the threat of punitive actions, if you don’t change. That said, I don’t believe that you can win this battle or even recoup some of your lost standing by giving up on the focus on shareholder wealth and replacing it with an ill-thought through and potentially destructive objective of advancing stakeholder interests. In my view, a much healthier discussion would be centered on creating more transparency about how corporations treat different stakeholder groups and linking that information with how they get valued in the market. I think that we are making strides on the first, with better information disclosure from companies and CSR measures, and I hope to help on the second front by connecting these disclosures to intrinsic value. As I noted earlier, if we want companies to behave better in their interactions with society, customers and employees, we have to make it in their financial best interests to do so, buying products and services from companies that treat other stakeholders better and paying higher prices for their shares.”
“From Shareholder wealth to Stakeholder interests: CEO Capitulation or Empty Doublespeak?”; Musings on Markets, 28 August 2019

The Economist also offers a perspective on what might go wrong with the “stakeholder” version of corporate purpose. The Economist uses the term “Collective Capitalism” to label this alternative formulation.

I am not convinced the answer proposed by The Economist is going to solve the problem but I still found it worth reading. Firstly, it reminds us that companies have been granted unique rights – in particular “limited liability”. We probably take this for granted but recognising that it is a privilege begs the question what does society get in return.

“Ever since businesses were granted limited liability in Britain and France in the 19th century, there have been arguments about what society can expect in return”

Like Damodaran, The Economist questions the ways in which companies might make the social choices not being addressed now.

“Consider accountability first. It is not clear how CEOs should know what “society” wants from their companies. The chances are that politicians, campaigning groups and the CEOs themselves will decide—and that ordinary people will not have a voice. Over the past 20 years industry and finance have become dominated by large firms, so a small number of unrepresentative business leaders will end up with immense power to set goals for society that range far beyond the immediate interests of their company.”

The Economist also reminds us that it is not clear how this kinder form of capitalism retains the creative destruction that has been part and parcel of the process of economic growth

The second problem is dynamism. Collective capitalism leans away from change. In a dynamic system firms have to forsake at least some stakeholders: a number need to shrink in order to reallocate capital and workers from obsolete industries to new ones. If, say, climate change is to be tackled, oil firms will face huge job cuts. Fans of the corporate giants of the managerial era in the 1960s often forget that AT&T ripped off consumers and that General Motors made out-of-date, unsafe cars. Both firms embodied social values that, even at the time, were uptight. They were sheltered partly because they performed broader social goals, whether jobs-for-life, world-class science or supporting the fabric of Detroit.

Lastly, this opinion piece by Barry Ritholz is also worth reading for a fairly blunt reminder of the parts of the system status quo that fall far short of the free market fairy tale. I have only scratched the surface of this topic but hopefully you will find the articles and blog posts referenced above useful.

Tony

“The Great Divide” by Andrew Haldane

This speech by Andrew Haldane (Chief Economist at the Bank of England) was given in 2016 but is sill worth reading for anyone interested in the question of what role banks play in society and why their reputation is not what it once was. Some of my long term correspondents will be familiar with the paper and may have seen an earlier draft of this post.

“The Great Divide” refers to a gap between how banks perceive themselves and how they are perceived by the community. Haldane references a survey the BOE conducted in which the most common word used by banks to describe themselves was “regulated” while “corrupt” was the community choice closely followed by “manipulated”, “self-serving”, “destructive” and “greedy”. There is an interesting “word cloud” chart in the paper representing this gap in perception.

While the focus is on banks, Haldane makes the point that the gap in perceptions reflects a broader tension between the “elites” and the common people. He does not make this explicit connection but it seemed to me that the “great divide” he was referencing could also be argued to be manifesting itself in the increasing support for populist political figures purporting to represent the interests of the common people against career politicians. This broader “great divide” idea seemed to me to offer a useful framework for thinking about the challenges the banking industry is facing in rebuilding trust.

Haldane uses this “great divide” as a reference for discussing

The crucial role finance plays in society
The progress made so far in restoring trust in finance
What more needs to be done

The crucial role finance plays in society

Haldane argues that closing the trust deficit between banks and society matters for two reasons

because a well functioning financial system is an essential foundation for a growing and well functioning economy – to quote Haldane “that is not an ideological assertion from the financial elite; it is an empirical fact”
but also because the downside of a poorly functioning financial system is so large

Haldane uses the GFC to illustrate the downside in terms of the destruction of the value of financial capital and physical capital but he introduces a third form of capital, “social capital” that he argues may matter every bit as much to the wealth and well being of society. He defines social capital as the “relationships, trust and co-operation forged between different groups of people over time. It is the sociological glue that binds diverse societies into a cohesive whole”. The concept of “trust” is at the heart of Haldane’s definition of social capital.

Haldane cites evidence that trust plays an important role at both the micro and macro level in value creation and growth and concludes that “… a lack of trust jeopardises one of finance’s key societal functions – higher growth”.

In discussing these trends, Haldane distinguishes “personalised trust” and “generalised trust“. The former refers to mutual co-operation built up through repeated personal interactions (Haldane cites example like visits to the doctor or hairdresser) while the latter is attached to an identifiable but anonymous group (Haldane cites trust in the rule of law, or government or Father Christmas).

He uses this distinction to explore why banks have lost the trust of the community;

He notes that banking was for most of its history a relationship based business. The business model was not perfect but it did deliver repeated interactions with customers that imbued banking with personalised trust. At the same time its “mystique” (Haldane’s term) meant that banking maintained a high degree of generalised trust as well.

He cites the reduction in local branches, a common strategy pre GFC, as one of the changes that delivered lower costs but reduced personal connections thereby contributing to reducing personalised trust. For a while, the banking system could reap the efficiency gains while still relying on generalised trust but the GFC subsequently undermined the generalised trust in the banking system. This generalised trust has been further eroded by the continued run of banking scandals that convey the sense that banks do not care about their customers.

What can be done to restore trust in finance

He notes the role that higher capital and liquidity have played but that this is not enough in his view. He proposes three paths

Enhanced public education
Creating “Purpose” in banking
Communicating “Purpose” in banking

Regarding public education, there is a telling personal anecdote he offers on his experience with pensions. He describes himself as “moderately financially literate” but follows with “Yet I confess to not being able to make the remotest sense of pensions. Conversations with countless experts and independent financial advisors have confirmed for me only one thing – that they have no clue either”. This may be dismissed as hyperbole but it does highlight that most people will be less financially literate than Haldane and are probably poorly equipped to deal with the financial choices they are required to make in modern society. I am not sure that education is the whole solution.

Regarding “purpose” Haldane’s main point seems to be that there is too much emphasis on shareholder value maximisation and not enough balance. This seems to be an issue that is amplified by the UK Companies Act that requires that directors place shareholder interests as their primary objective. To the best of my knowledge, the Australian law does not have an equivalent explicit requirement to put shareholders first but we do grapple with the same underlying problem. Two of my recent posts (“The World’s Dumbest Idea” and “The Moral Economy” touch on this issue.

Regarding communicating purpose, Haldane cites some interesting evidence that the volume of information provided by companies is working at cross purposes with actual communication with stakeholders. Haldane does not make the explicit link but Pillar 3 clearly increases the volume of information provided by banks. The points raised by Haldane imply (to me at least) that Pillar 3 might actually be getting in the way of communicating clearly with stakeholders.

This is a longish post but I think there is quite a lot of useful content in the speech so I would recommend it.

“The World’s Dumbest Idea” by James Montier of GMO.

Anyone interested in the question of shareholder value will I think find this paper by James Montier interesting.

The focus of the paper is to explore problems with elevating Shareholder Value to be the primary objective of a firm. Many companies are trying to achieve a more balanced approach but the paper is still useful background given that some investors appear to believe that shareholder value maximisation is the only valid objective a company should pursue. The paper also touches on the question of how increasing inequality is impacting the environment in which we operate.

While conceding that the right incentives can prompt better performance, JM argues that there is a point where increasing the size of the reward actually leads to worse performance;

“From the collected evidence on the psychology of incentives, it appears that when incentives get too high people tend to obsess about them directly, rather than on the task in hand that leads to the payout. Effectively, high incentives divert attention away from where it should be”

The following extracts will give you a sense of the key points and whether you want to read the paper itself.

“Let’s now turn to the broader implications and damage done by the single-minded focus on SVM. In many ways the essence of the economic backdrop we find ourselves facing today can be characterized by three stylized facts: 1) declining and low rates of business investment; 2) rising inequality; and 3) a low labour share of GDP (evidenced by Exhibits 7 through 9).” — Page 7 —
“This preference for low investment tragically “makes sense” given the “alignment” of executives and shareholders. We should expect SVM to lead to increased payouts as both the shareholders have increased power (inherent within SVM) and the managers will acquiesce as they are paid in a similar fashion. As Lazonick and Sullivan note, this led to a switch in modus operandi from “retain and reinvest” during the era of managerialism to “downsize and distribute” under SVM.” — Page 9 —
“This diversion of cash flows to shareholders has played a role in reducing investment. A little known fact is that almost all investment carried out by firms is financed by internal sources (i.e., retained earnings). Exhibit 13 shows the breakdown of the financing of gross investment by source in five-year blocks since the 1960s. The dominance of internal financing is clear to see (a fact first noted by Corbett and Jenkinson in 1997”— Page 10 —
“The obsession with returning cash to shareholders under the rubric of SVM has led to a squeeze on investment (and hence lower growth), and a potentially dangerous leveraging of the corporate sector” — Page 11 —
“The problem with this (apart from being an affront to any sense of fairness) is that the 90% have a much higher propensity to consume than the top 10%. Thus as income (and wealth) is concentrated in the hands of fewer and fewer, growth is likely to slow significantly. A new study by Saez and Zucman (2014) … shows that 90% have a savings rate of effectively 0%, whilst the top 1% have a savings rate of 40%…. ultimately creating a fallacy of composition where they are undermining demand for their own products by destroying income).” —Page 13 —
“Only by focusing on being a good business are you likely to end up delivering decent returns to shareholders. Focusing on the latter as an objective can easily undermine the former. Concentrate on the former, and the latter will take care of itself.” — Page 14 —
“… management guru Peter Drucker was right back in 1973 when he suggested “The only valid purpose of a firm is to create a customer.”” — Page 14 —