The number-crunchers who st.., er borrow, M&M and CAPM then slap in their own three letter acronym and black box claims are NOT trying to sell old wine in new bottles. They are trying to sell OTHERS´ wine by removing the originators´ labels and then replacing them with their own. Probably highly profitable, but acceptable only to firms with gutter ethics.

Not content with their slimy near-theft alone, the three-letter acronym guys (take your choice-- we count more than a dozen out there, continuously entering and exiting the marketplace including ´Big´ Five), switch to hyperbole by claiming, in effect, that ´use of XXX value measure achieves maximum value when applied in the firm all across the firm´.

Egad. That´s like saying that there will be no wars ever if only everyone learns to live together. Neither insightful nor helpful, this non-advise from lightweight statistical value boutiques and their junior MBA operatives completely misses the point.

VALUE IS CREATED ONE ACTION AT A TIME, and never by prosletized whiz-bang formulas alone. If a corporate manager possesses a value measure but does not know EXACTLY what to do in order to maximize value, the black box often does more harm than good.

Value is destroyed in the client company as an expensive new mini-bureaucracy is erected for crunching useless numbers that mean nothing. Corporate executives are eventually fired when it is discovered that they DESTROYED company value by being the fools for the lastest frothy, content-free management fad: the black box value formula that magically makes everything right. A modern fairy tale.

Value? Oh, there´s lots of it for the snake-oil selling consultants who (temporarily) earn seven figure fees for their re-packaged formulas advertised as gold to gullible managers looking for easy answers. Far TOO easy, as it turns out.

What DOES work, CORPORATE value-wise? In the new century, the Managing for Value pendulum now swings dramatically away from these hollow, overreaching formulas and their proponents, back towards ACTUAL VALUE CREATION. That means precise major actions that distinguish tomorrow´s value leader from tomorrow´s lunch for predators.
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