Traditional methods of customer-oriented business strategies have focused on segmenting customers by geographics and demographics, while newer methods attempt to intelligently leverage underlying customer behaviors and motivations. The most successful strategies combine a qualitative and quantitative approach to understanding customers – in other words, defining and using the ‘right data’.

When seeking to define a successful merger, the discussion will tend to be drawn to hard quantitative metrics. Share price, synergies, or other accounting parameters can provide a public record of success or failure, and are easy to measure. However, it is how effectively people and culture are managed during an integration which will determine whether a newly combined organization is truly set up for success.

This edition, produced in partnership with King’s Business School, is dedicated to the theme of ESG – environmental, social and governance. The edition draws upon the knowledge and experience of world-class experts from both industry and academia, covering a host of ESG topics and innovations including the value of tracking Return on Sustainability Investment (ROSI) and the importance of moving away from purely external risks to addressing issues that can have positive commercial and societal impacts.