Dickeson--Making Relevant Data Decisions

General ledger bookkeeping and cost accounting are no longer the real world where problems are solved and decisions made. We're coming to realize that a printing business doesn't succeed by controlling internal costs. It must focus on the external world by adding value that fulfills market needs.

Cutting costs may save a faltering company for a time by making it more efficient. But efficiencies of reduced internal costs don't supply external customer value. Adding value to blank paper makes the printer effective. All the ledgers and sophisticated cost systems a computer can produce are but internal yardsticks that have not a thing to do with the outside world where the customers live.