Managers and investors need more than just financial statements to understand how well a company is doing. To help them, firms should also report on how valuable their customers are. By using future-focused customer metrics, companies can show how well they are managing their customer base. This information can help align customer management with company goals and investor interests. The researchers developed a way to report on customer equity, which helps track how well a company is doing with its customer assets. They applied this model to Netflix and found it useful for monitoring the company's performance over several years.