Quality Of Major Processes, Products, Or Services 5. Environmental Performance 6. Brand Investment 7. Although our readers rated the importance of alliances relatively low, our statistical analysis shows that companies with more joint ventures, marketing and manufacturing alliances, and other forms of partnerships have substantially higher market values. It suggests that in the connected economy, connections matter.
Alliances are incredibly, even decisively, important.
Similarly, our results indicate that quality is not dead. Our survey respondents ranked it seventh in importance, yet in the durable sector, product quality, including the quality of the manufacturing process, remains statistically a strong predictor of corporate value. Just as surprising is the importance of environmental performance. Although most companies pay only lip service to this issue, and readers ranked it the least important of the value drivers, companies that perform better in this dimension have significantly higher market values. That means these things, in contrast to our readers' perceptions, aren't helping companies create value at all.