Do Rewards Really Create Loyalty?" Louise O'Brien and Charles Jones argue that they do, but only if a company learns how to share value with its most profitable customers in proportion to the value the customers' loyalty creates for the company.

In 1993, BP Exploration Operating Company Limited, the $13 billion division of British Petroleum Company that explores for and produces oil and gas, outsourced all its information technology operations in an effort to cut costs, gain more flexible and higher-quality IT resources, and refocus the IT department on activities that directly improve the overall business.

Once the rage of Western capitalism, leveraged buy outs have lost their glamour and much of their respectability. Although some LBOs have deserved the criticism they have received, the overall perception about them is distorted, contend.