People Are What Matter Most in Business

Here's what drives me crazy: professionals who think that business is about technology, money, manufacturing processes, or the supply chain. This is nonsense. All successful companies resolve around human needs.

Without people, every patent in the world would be worthless. People are the ultimate consumers of every product and service, including the most obscure manufacturing technology. Even in business to business sales, people make the decisions about what to purchase and when.

Corporate leaders go on and on about building - and sustaining - competitive advantage. Companies try to compete on price, quality or design; these create temporary advantages at best. The only lasting competitive advantage is knowledge your company possesses - that competitors lack - about the people your company serves.

Serve, don't sell

Why is this true? Such knowledge enables your firm to make loyalty more convenient than disloyalty. It becomes easier for customers to work with you than your competitors. It becomes easier for you to understand and serve their needs. It becomes easier to make a fair and sustainable profit, because you don't waste time and money on activities your customers don't value.

Not everyone agrees with me. Some managers despise the thought that people matter. They think business success is all about managing the numbers; that's why you see firms cutting employees to boost profits. Ah, but this is a very, very short-term strategy. You can't cut your way to success, especially if you forget that business is all about people.

Take for example, a firm that axes employees to increase profits. Think about the relationships it will disrupt by taking dozens, hundreds or even thousands of people out of the picture. Those missing employees will have had numerous relationships with customers, partners and suppliers. Tons of information will disappear about their needs. As those employees depart, so will their insights and information.

This, for example, is why so many management teams embrace CRM and Knowledge Management systems; they take knowledge from inside people's heads, and put it in the hands of the business. But employees have long been suspicious of such systems... a salesperson might correctly realize that if she reveals all her contacts and customer interactions, it will be easier to replace her.

Of course, none of this is a problem if the culture and top management team of a firm puts people first. When leaders realize that people are what matter most in business, everything else falls in line.

Bruce Kasanoff is a ghostwriter for entrepreneurs. Learn more at Kasanoff.com. He is the author of How to Self-Promote without Being a Jerk.

An earlier version of this article appeared in Forbes.