James Gilmore

Biography

James Gilmore is co-founder of Aurora, Ohio-based Strategic Horizons LLP, a thinking studio dedicated to helping businesses conceive and design new ways of adding value to their economic offerings. Mr. Gilmore works with management teams to grasp the nature of the emerging Experience Economy and envision their role in it – whether it be staging experiences, guiding transformations, or mass customizing any economic offering. Mr. Gilmore is a frequent speaker at professional society and trade association conferences, as well as executive education programs of individual companies. He has written numerous articles on business strategy and innovation for such publications as the Harvard Business Review, The Wall Street Journal, Strategy & Leadership, Context, and The Journal of Cost Management, among others.

Mr. Gilmore is also co-author, with Joe Pine, of The Experience Economy: Work Is Theatre & Every Business a Stage. The book demonstrates how companies – across a myriad of industries – are finding their goods and services commoditized with customers increasingly spending their money on experiences – memorable events that engage customers in an inherently personal way, like going to Walt Disney World or a theme restaurant. It also shows how businesses can create value by embracing theatre as an operating model to stage unique experiences that, ultimately, transform those who participate in them. As a follow-up, Pine and Gilmore recently edited Markets of One: Creating Customer-Unique Value through Mass Customization.

Mr. Gilmore began his career with Procter & Gamble and then spent over ten years consulting with Cleveland Consulting Associates and Computer Sciences Corporation, heading up CSC Consulting’s process innovation practice. Mr. Gilmore is a certified instructor in the lateral thinking methodologies of Dr. Edward Debono, and is a member of both the Creative Education Foundation and the Creative Thinking Association of America. He also serves on the faculty of The Institutes for Organization Management for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and works with both for-profit and non-profit enterprises to foster innovative thinking. Mr. Gilmore is a graduate of the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.

Publications

Future economic growth lies in the value of experiences and transformations--good and services are no longer enough. We are on the threshold, say authors Pine and Gilmore, of the Experience Economy, a new economic era in which all businesses must orchestrate memorable events for their customers. The Experience Economy offers a creative, highly original, and yet eminently practical strategy for companies to script and stage the experiences that will transform the value of what they produce. From America Online to Walt Disney, the authors draw from a rich and varied mix of examples that showcase businesses in the midst of creating personal experiences for both consumers and businesses. The authors urge managers to look beyond traditional pricing factors like time and cost, and consider charging for the value of the transformation that an experience offers. Goods and services, say Pine and Gilmore, are no longer enough. Experiences and transformations are the basis for future economic growth, and The Experience Economy is the script from which managers can begin to direct their own transformations.

Titles

Customization that Counts
Putting the “Custom” Into Customer Service
Beyond the Service Economy