1. Trust is and remains the greatest asset of a company.

Trust is the essence of every relationship. It is the essential lubricant in the gears of a value creation system designed to last. Trust does not develop overnight. Every entrepreneur, every company has to work hard to earn it, over many years. Once it is in place, it forms the basis for a business to "swing in" and grow dynamically on its own - in turnover and margin. For example, as a basic premise, as the internal trust of management in the trust of the clientele, it also underlies many annual budgets.

Building trust should therefore also be the central object of entrepreneurial thinking and action. As the company's most valuable asset, the protection, cultivation and development of trust should be given top priority. Anything that does not directly or indirectly contribute to building trust should be viewed critically: Short-term thinking. Opportunistic action. Isolated pursuit of particular interests. Compromises in quality and excellence. Many once strong companies have already destroyed themselves from within because they did not put value the importance of trust for their business highly enough.

2. Unique customer value must be permanently reinvented and designed in an agile manner.

In digital transformation, however, the rules of the game are now changing as to how companies can build, reproduce and capitalize on the trust of their customers. More and more, it is important to surprise positively within the context of established customer expectations. Above all, by recognising the potential in new technological possibilities faster than the competition and transforming them into new types of customer benefits.

It is important to constantly reinvent customer benefits close to the market and to prove them with impressive performances. In a unique way. Active "Customer Centricity" - but self-determined. This is not possible if you run after your competitors. It doesn't work if you copy other people's recipes for success. Nor does it work if you hold on to outdated beliefs for too long.

The secret of success lies in managing the tension between efficient reproduction and bold reinvention of specialities with relevant customer value. In the actual content of the services. And in the way you talk about what you do. No company can avoid finding new answers here again and again. From within themselves. On the basis of their own success DNA. And with the unswerving will to be different from the others.

3. Companies are self-confidently managed according to the cause and effect principle.

What are the value drivers of the business that stand as causes behind customer benefit and trust? What concrete contribution do the many activities, processes or structures make to creating value for the customer? Which ones will matter tomorrow when customer needs change? How do you make it so that everything reinforces everything else and pays off on one point - the brand? Only those who understand in detail the connections between their business success with the customer and the many activities of their company can manage their value creation system in a target-oriented way and develop their business model effectively.

For it is precisely a differentiated awareness of the interrelationships in one's own brand system that creates the prerequisite for keeping one's bearings even in the face of complex, abrupt or drastic market changes and being able to adapt one's own services to new customer needs, new rules of the game and new technologies in the right place with the necessary speed in terms of the specific features of one's own company. Entrepreneurial success can thus be actively influenced by disciplined, self-confident and normative management. Also in the "VUCA" world. Brand awareness sharpens the ability to distinguish between strengthened trust / destroyed trust again and again in individual cases and to make better decisions.

4. Organisations today need collective decision-making and operative competence.

The times of abstract strategy presentations are over. So are dry instructions for action from the top down, which make no sense to many employees, even after thinking it over repeatedly. Leadership is different today. Internal communication and cooperation is different today. Together. At eye level. Without egos. Without silos.

Realising superior, new customer value and doing it faster and better than the competition. To achieve this, organisations today need to evolve the way they organise and collaborate internally. Towards an intelligent collective, capable of agile decision-making and action. Less like an imposing but rigid building with many floors, many rooms and many (closed) doors. And much more like an open, pulsating network in which employees - across all hierarchical levels - are given the orientation, freedom and empowerment to act in the interests of the company.

In many cases, this requires a cultural change at management and staff level. The "purpose" of a company, as a meaningful and powerful communicator for all thinking and action, moves to the centre of employee management.

5. Advertising must deliver its mediation service efficiently and effectively.

Companies invest a lot in building specialities and in innovations. In the end, however, all this is meaningless if they do not succeed in conveying the resulting value to the customer. If they cannot make it so tangible that it is classified and remembered by the audience as relevant. Hardly any company today can afford the loss of power that occurs when its own mediation performance is not on a par with its own value creation performance.

In the struggle for people's attention, it is not a matter of drowning out the ever-increasing din with more generic messages, with more and more budget and volume. What is needed today for efficient and effective communication is communicative precision. On the one hand, by consistently broadcasting on a specific brand frequency. By building an exclusive relationship level that does not have to be shared with others. Positioning, storytelling, communication patterns and design have a great influence on this.

On the other hand, it is also important to use the new digital possibilities in marketing and to work in a data-driven, system-supported and increasingly automated way. Precise, individualised, cross-channel coordinated control of messages and experience chains that are relevant to the recipient but specific to the brand. Rapid measurement and learning in real time. Dynamic adaptation and further development of the content, so that in total a "customer journey" can be experienced that deserves the name. All of this will increasingly shape the success of communication in the future.

Shaping the "Next Generation" with joy

Shaping the "Next Generation" means that a self-determined image of the future noticeably inspires the present in a positive way, so that a company can continually create new trust and successfully develop its customer relationships. With joy in shaping. And ideally from a position of strength. When business is good. And not just when your back is against the wall economically, time and resources are running out and you can no longer afford to make mistakes.

Author: Bastian Schneider