That the world, right now, is suffering from multiple crises is obvious. Nations are at war. Gang violence and terrorist acts are commonplace. Weather extremes are fueling food and water insecurity. Leadership vacuums are disrupting social and economic systems. Education is increasingly inaccessible and disconnected from skills, threatening a future for the young.
What may be less obvious is that the world’s manifold crises share a common core. At the heart of the crises just described, and various others not mentioned, lies a disagreement or misunderstanding about value.
A misunderstanding over what value is
The world’s “value crises” are not simply over what should be valued, by whom, and why, however. There is a deeper, more fundamental issue at play, and it concerns the essence of value itself, what value really is.
This is perhaps most evident in the business sphere. Above all else, businesses are expected to create value, be it in the form of products, services, ideas, or experiences. Yet instances of companies failing to provide discernable value or worse, outright destroying value, fill the news cycle.
Many cases of value destruction in business are the result of fraud or dishonesty. In other cases, companies erode or destroy value in the course of their day-to-day operations. This can be through accidents or externalities, a term for the side effects of business activity. Corporate accidents include industrial disasters and technology failures. As for negative externalities, these typically result from the production and consumption of a consumer product, such as smart phones, which for all their convenience bring with them a fast-growing electronic waste stream that flies in the face of growing demands for sustainability.
Not only electronics, but consumer goods more generally have a tendency to result in value destruction. This is because the business cycle subtending consumer capitalism is markedly vicious. The shelves of American supercenters are replete with shoddy or questionable goods, pumped up with manipulative marketing designed to exploit human cognitive biases and emotional vulnerabilities. Many of these items claim to represent value on account of their low prices. Yet steep discounts frequently come at the expense of quality and durability, and products with short life cycles have an outsized impact on people’s wallets.
Consistent consumer spending may generate high profits and positive shareholder returns (economic value for a corporation), but can we say with a straight face that a company creates real value if its products or services burden or harm its customers financially, physically, or experientially? What if a company makes good products, but its employees receive abysmally low wages, zero vacation time, and virtually no benefits?
A Commitment to real value
This is why VIA Research + Advisory was created. To educate and empower businesses, agencies, and product/service companies to create real, sustainable value for all of their stakeholders.
VIA is purpose-built to help organizations embody and embed their values to make a positive, lasting impact on people, society, and nature. We support various sectors and work with for-profits and non-profits, established brands and value-focused startups.
Have a look around our website and see what we can offer. We’re confident we can help you on your value journey and look forward to partnering with your team to maximize its Value, Impact, and Acceleration for the greater good.