Review
“
My 40 years of international business experience would completely endorse this total focus on the stakeholder balance sheet. The managers who get this right will set themselves apart by getting the perfect balance for long term success.”
(Sir Peter Bonfield CBE FREng,Chairman of NXP Supervisory Board and formerly CEO of BT Group plc and ICL plc)
“This thoughtful and innovative crossover book enhances our understanding of the complex processes that link many aspects of business strategy, with a specific focus on how best organizations can understand the stakeholders in their marketplace so as to enhance long-run financial performance. Utilizing a comprehensive checklist of questions at the end of each chapter, The Stakeholder Balance Sheet is an excellent and highly practical framework for understanding these processes, monitoring the key dimensions of market performance, identifying areas for improvement in the organization, and modifying strategy to improve performance. This book is a must-read for decision makers in any organization, regardless of level or function.”
(Professor Sharan Jagpal, Rutgers Business School, and author of Fusion for Profit: How Marketing and Finance Can Work Together to Create Value)
“Suntook and Murphy have distilled their wealth of experience into a book which makes useful practical suggestions for action which can improve company effectiveness. The book addresses the complexity of customers' decision making and suggests a systematic approach to marketing which allows an organisation to check itself against best standards.”
(Andrew Wright, Managing Director, Syngas & GTL Johnson Matthey Catalysts)
“All business leaders should read this book. For too long businesses have partially focused on one or two stakeholders such as customers or employees. This book provides a refreshing insight into the complementary relevance of all stakeholders.”
(Ronan Dunne, Chief Executive, Telefonica, O2 UK)
“Focusing on customer satisfaction alone is insufficient to achieve business goals in today’s complex marketplace. This must-read book provides managers with an actionable methodology to manage both internal and external stakeholders to build the 21st century brand.”
(Professor Sandeep Krishnamurthy, Associate Director of Graduate Services, University of Washington)
“An excellent book for directors reflecting on their organisation, or managers starting out in their career and wanting to get it right. The unique measurement tool introduced in the book provides an overall enterprise balance sheet relative to each stakeholder.”
(Mark Adams, CEO Virgin Healthcare )
"A validation of the centrality of stakeholder theory in modern business management" (Ethical Corporation Magazine, November 2008)
From the Back Cover
In a relentlessly competitive environment, the general manager – whether a director or any senior/middle manager who may not have a specific market-facing responsibility – cannot afford the luxury of leaving the business of understanding customers and other stakeholders entirely in the hands of the “experts”.
No responsible CEO will say “as long as my CFO tells me that the revenue and profit situation is fine, I really don’t need to look at my company’s balance sheet and income statement”. Equally, the general manager who genuinely wishes to drive a market-centric organisation should not feel content to leave the analysis of the “stakeholder balance sheet” entirely in the hands of the specialists in marketing, pr, investor relations or customer analysis.
This highly practical book enables any practicing manager not only to develop the market insights that will strengthen their position in the market place, but to really profit from this understanding.
The Stakeholder Balance Sheet presents a tool which has to the best of our knowledge so far not been available, enabling organizations to unlock the DNA of the market place in which they operate and to measure their effectiveness in understanding their markets and the key stakeholders operating within them.
This hugely practical book presents self-testing checklists at the end of each chapter that enable managers to score themselves on “stakeholder-sensitive issues” in the same way that they might assess their financial performance by scrutinising financial statements. A review of how well your organisation has fared on the questions will tell you how healthy your “balance sheet” is.
Lessons to learn from application of the Stakeholder Balance Sheet include:
- How to maximise commercial success through understanding the market place.
- What appropriate tools are required by organisations to enhance their understanding of the market place, and how these should be utilised.
- What are effective ways of being a truly stakeholder-sensitive enterprise.
In a nutshell, a genuine understanding of how customers and other stakeholders think, feel and behave offers the essential starting point for any general manager - not just the marketing or sales specialist - seeking to determine the direction of his organisation.
