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Authenticityby James Gilmore, B. Joseph Pine (Harvard Business School Press, 288 Pages) ***800-CEO-READ offers substantial discounts on bulk orders. Simply call 800-236-7323 for extra savings*** Contrived. Disingenuous. Phony. Inauthentic. Do your customers use any of these words to describe what you sell or how you sell it? If so, welcome to the club. Inundated by fakes and sophisticated counterfeits, people increasingly see the world in terms of real or fake. They would rather buy something real from someone genuine, rather than something fake from some phony. When deciding to buy, consumers judge an offering's (and a company's) authenticity as much as if not more than price, quality, and availability. In Authenticity, James H. Gilmore and B. Joseph Pine II argue that, to trounce rivals, companies must grasp, manage, and excel at rendering authenticity. Through examples from a wide array of industries as well as government, non-profit, education, and religious sectors, the authors show how to manage customers perception of authenticity by:
The first to explore what authenticity really means for businesses and how companies can approach it both thoughtfully and thoroughly, this book is a must-read for any organization seeking to fulfill consumers intensifying demand for the real deal. |