Benefits

So, if we take value to be the benefits-to-cost ratio, cost is relatively simple, and we have to talk more about benefits.

The money you earn from doing something is a common example of benefits. However, benefits are not limited to money; for example, saving lives, improving quality of life, saving the environment, and many other things can be considered as benefits (or at least a quantified form of them, according to some resources). If you improve your reputation by doing a project or enter a new market, that’s also a benefit, or at least an outcome that can create benefits.

Different organizations have different value drivers; for example, improving quality of life may be

• the main driver for a public organization,
• a secondary, yet desirable one for an ethical private company that has the primary driver of earning money, or
• of no value at all to some companies.

This is why we say that value and benefits are subjective.