Peter Drucker’s insightful and timeless definition remains the only correct answer, and that is “the purpose of a business is to create and keep a customer”. A business serves to do only one thing, and that is to provide a product or service that has sufficient value in fulfilling a need that the business can be sustained. The customer determines that value and, and to a large degree, also determines whether the business continues to exist. Sure, it must also make money because if the business is truly sustainable it must be able to generate enough earnings or profit over and above its costs to invest in improving its products and services over those of its competitors.

All of the “hot button” topics like environmental stewardship, insuring the safety and health of its workers, actively participating in the betterment of the communities in which it operates, respect for and equality for all races and gender to name a few are all peripheral issues to this most important aspect, which is to deliver a product or service that is of value. In this age of unparalleled flows of information, the failure of a business to properly address those social responsibilities or its lack of sincere values and beliefs that are aligned with those of society will not go unnoticed and these oversights will quickly diminish or destroy its value in the eyes of its customers. Businesses that are successful understand this and so do their employees. They do not need a wall full of posters or wallet-sized cards to remind them of what is important; it is natural to them in their every action. Businesses that do not understand this are businesses that fail and the many clever marketing and re-positioning campaigns only serve to forestall the inevitable.

Some will of course disagree with this and unfortunately there are still many examples to support this dissenting view; utility monopolies, and businesses that have managed to protect their inferior value through political guile (airlines quickly come to mind) are perhaps the most obvious on this list. Another equally onerous problem is when the customer has allowed his or her own value system to be compromised for the sake of a lower cost. The recent rash of reports and “horror shows” on the inferior and dangerous goods coming from China are excellent examples of this phenomenon. The customer has been lulled by a seemingly endless downward spiral of prices for over a decade now and continues to expect this. Turning a blind eye to the real cost of this to society is easy until it hits home when the family pooch is lying belly up in the garage one morning.

As the culture of consumerism continues its march around the world, technology has dramatically increased both our real time knowledge along with the number of available choices we the customer have. Perhaps now more than ever the most important aspect of business must be “to create and keep the customer.”