I don't look at business as a zero-sum game. I don't. I've never seen it play out that way in our industry, and I think you innovate and you add value, deliver value back to customers, and you get value back from the world.
Interpretation
Business can be a collaborative endeavor where value is created and shared, rather than a competition where one party's gain is another's loss.
This quote by Marc Benioff emphasizes a perspective on business that sees it as a space for innovation and value creation rather than a competitive zero-sum game. In his view, businesses succeed by delivering value to customers, which in turn generates value for the business itself, suggesting that collaboration and mutual benefit are key to success in the industry.
In practice
During a conference on entrepreneurship, one could quote this to emphasize the importance of creating value through collaboration.
Once you know what you want and what is important for you to achieve, also define the values associated with it. What is important? That is something a lot of entrepreneurs pass by too quickly. For us, the things that were important were, No. 1, customer success. Nothing is more important to us than making sure every customer is successful in our service.
I strongly believe the business of a business is to improve the world.
The secret to successful hiring is this: look for the people who want to change the world.
Although I loved working on technology - I've always been a computer geek at heart - my professors encouraged me to get a real-world job working with customers.
The only constant in the technology industry is change.
The antidote to inequality is equality. The question is how do you achieve equality? I believe that, for business, which is where I can speak, we have to shift from shareholder maximization to stakeholder maximization.
Most marketers think there's a concept called a product life cycle. Once you realize that the world is organized by jobs that need to be done, you understand that product life cycles don't exist.
Roughly speaking, when you are dealing with business firms operating in a competitive system, you can assume that they're going to act rationally. Why? Because someone in a firm who buys things at $10 and sells them for $8.00 isn't going to last very long in that firm.
I love business. I love helping urban communities grow. I love putting people to work of color. I love making sure - like right now the whole mortgage crisis, I want to help people get back into their homes.
If you don't drive your business, you will be driven out of business.
Conscious business.. business that is conscious of inner and outer worlds.. would therefore be business that takes into account body, mind, and spirit in self, culture, and nature. Put differently, conscious business would be mindful of the way that the spectrum of consciousness operates in the Big Three worlds of self and culture and nature.
The sooner you cut off negotiations with someone you shouldn't be dealing with, it gives you the chance to move on to a more profitable deal.
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