Jonathan Byrnes - Choose Your Customer: How to Compete Against the Digital Giants and Thrive

Praise for

and Jonathan L. S. Byrnes
and John S. Wass

Choose Your Customer provides real-world, practical, and actionable advice for companies to survive and thrive in the New Digital Age. A terrific blueprint to successfully go to market and win against the digital giants.

Roger Fradin, Chairman of Resideo and former Vice Chairman of Honeywell International

This book provides a tried-and-true, data-driven, logical approach to developing and executing a successful strategic transformation in todays threatening high-risk environment.

Ben Shapiro, Malcolm P. McNair Professor of Marketing Emeritus at Harvard Business School

Jonathan and John provide compelling examples to understand true profitability by product and customer, using the most atomic level of data: actual sales transactions. They describe useful frameworks to turn analytical insights into initiatives and management alignment, clearly defining a strategy, including what not to do. This book is a road map of initiatives that will drive a 20 to 30 percent profit improvement.

Massimo Russo, Managing Director and Senior Partner at Boston Consulting Group and Fellow of the BCG Bruce Henderson Institute

Choose Your Customer explains how to develop and manage new innovative, win-win relationships with your customers that target and meet their specific, evolving needs. This is critical to success in competing against the powerful digital competitors and aggressive investor-backed companies that are disrupting every industry. Every manager will benefit from reading it.

Mike Kaufmann, CEO of Cardinal Health

Dr. Byrnes is probably the worlds foremost authority on profit mapping and effective supply chain management, and all of Profit Isles work should be required reading for managers of and investors in any supply chain related business. In Choose Your Customer, Jonathan and John provide terrific advice on how a company should compete against the digital behemoths by using transaction-based profit metrics to recognize (and then align the organization around) its true customer profit core. If youre still thinking that maximizing efficiency is a key imperative for your business, then you REALLY need to read this book.

Sam Darkatsh, Managing Director at Raymond James Equity Research

Choose Your Customer is a great master plan for companies to better understand their customers and align to improve performance. It is a readable, commonsense framework for managing your business better in todays digital world. A must-read for todays managers in a world of disruptive competitors.

Ron Sargent, former Chairman and CEO of Staples, Lead Director at Kroger, and Director at Wells Fargo and Five Below

Choose Your Customer is an important book that tells managers how to compete successfully against the onslaught of digital giants that is transforming business today. It is essential reading for CEOs, CFOs, and other managers who need to reposition their companies for success. Business school students and all managers will benefit from the books explanation of how to become value entrepreneurs.

Vijay Govindarajan, Coxe Distinguished Professor of Management at Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth and New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestselling author of The Three-Box Solution

With profitability as its North Star, this book provides the vision and definitive game plan for how to reposition your business to compete successfully in the future. The authors articulate the sweep of disruptive market transitions today, and then surgically offer prescriptive, actionable steps company leaders canand musttake to win. Favorite quote: Most businesses are doing what they should have been doing 5 to 10 years ago. Amen.

Thomas Gale, CEO of Modern Distribution Management

Choose Your Customer is the indispensable guide for companies looking to thrive and prosper in todays disruptive environment. This book is just what distributors need today. Using practical tips and rich examples, Byrnes and Wass will challenge you to strategically manage your customers, data, business processes, and management team in pursuit of strategic dominance.

Patricia Lilly, Chief Thought Leadership Officer of the National Association of Wholesaler-Distributors

I believe that Jonathan and John are pioneers in the area of strategy and profitability management. They have used their deep expertise to bring together a very insightful and practical approach for companies to lead, transform in this new era of digital disruption, and drive value for the consumer. This book has really shaped my perspective in this space: it is a must-read for all executives, managers, and students.

Gautam Kapur, VP of Consumer Strategy and Innovation at Fidelity Investments

Choose Your Customer is that rare book that combines academic rigor with practical experience. Byrnes and Wass describe why the digital giants are threatening conventional physical businesses, and then provide the tools to fight back. A necessary resource for any CEO looking to collect the granular sales and profit information that can turn their supply chains into a source of competitive advantage.

Eric Ball, General Partner at Impact Venture Capital, former SVP and Treasurer at Oracle, and author of Unlocking the Ivory Tower

Through their groundbreaking Profit Isle methodology, Jonathan and John have fundamentally changed the lens with which we view profitability and the levers we use to drive improved performance in our company. They taught us that optimizing our supply chain actually starts at the very beginningwith targeting the right customers. I would encourage any CEO or CFO looking to drive a step function change to read this book.

Erik Gershwind, President and CEO of MSC Industrial Direct

If you own or run a business, you must read this book. Byrnes and Wass show us that all customers are not created equal. Every business must identify and nurture profitable relationships and neglect those customers who lose you money. Their model of how to segment your customers provides you with the tools necessary to increase your profitability and boost employee morale.

Denis Kelly, Vice Chairman of Scura Partners and former Head of Mergers and Acquisitions at Prudential Securities

Driving profitable growth is critical for long-term survival. It goes beyond simply defining your value proposition and identifying sources of competitive advantage. It includes prioritizing the game changers and aligning human and financial capital accordingly. In this book, Jonathan and John combine practical advice with a scalable framework to help leaders understand where and how to take action and create a playbook for winning.

Mike Duffy, CEO at FleetPride, former CEO of C&S Wholesale Grocers, and former President of Hospital Solutions and Global Supply Chain at Cardinal Health

In todays highly segmented markets dominated by big digital giants, Byrnes and Wass show step-by-step how to zero in on the lucrative opportunities that abound, if you only know where to look. Its a quick read, thought- provoking, and informative how-to manual, and go-to source for concrete, actionable insights.