Things That Are Perceived as Having Little Commercial Value

As business continues to rely more and more heavily on artificial intelligence and technology, some things have come to be perceived as having no commercial value. A few are:

Caring: There are people, companies, and business models that believe every commercial relationship can be reduced to a transaction. Caring, as far as some are concerned, adds no additional value.

Relationships: Some believe that relationships have no commercial value, believing that there is nothing to be gained by a human relationship as it pertains to results. Some believe the process is what matters, and that humans can be swapped out without losing anything.

Redundancy: Most companies are under pressure to perform financially, and eliminating waste is one way to lower costs. In doing so, redundancy is removed to create savings. The performance and outcomes are also recused and diminished, and mediocrity dominates due to a lack of resources.

Gratitude: Your clients paid for your solution. You delivered the solution. They paid, and you delivered. For some, the client should be grateful for their help, and they feel no gratitude is necessary.

Loyalty: The card and the points are a tactic. Real loyalty would require that your clients buy from you because you have some intimacy, some knowledge of who they are, what they want, and a desire to help them.

Presence: Having people spend time with other people is expensive. Showing up, being there, and paying attention to people is a cost that some believe to be unnecessary.

As commercial enterprises split into two poles, one group running towards a super-transactional business model and the other towards a super-relational model, the very things that the first group believes have little to no commercial value are the very things that create a competitive advantage for the second group.

If you believe that the soft stuff, the human stuff, has no commercial value and is not worth investing in, then you are moving towards super-transactional, and with it, the greater risk of being disintermediated. Unless this is your overall business model and strategy, you need to think carefully about underestimating things that you believe aren’t worth investing in.