The published record
The model, the hidden-cost method and the interventions that Savall, Zardet and ISEOR have published over five decades. It is theirs, and it is cited where it is used.
The record, with sources →Research
The research Kihon stands on, and the research it is doing.
Kihon applies ISEOR’s socio-economic approach to how B2B companies win and keep revenue. The record is Henri Savall and Véronique Zardet’s; the B2B application is Kihon’s research.
Three layers of evidence
The record, the research, and the standard a case must meet.
A claim on this site belongs to one of three layers, and says which. Nothing moves from one layer to the next without the work that layer requires.
The research programme
The same model applied to B2B commercial organisations: the research questions, and the doctoral research that tests one of them.
The programme →Client evidence
Measured results from client work, held to a published standard and released only with the client’s authorisation.
The standard a case meets →Where the method comes from
Fifty years of the method, in the record's own dates.
Every entry but the last is ISEOR's work, not Kihon's. Each links to where it is written down.
- 1974The approach is first tested
The socio-economic approach "has been successfully tested on thousands of companies and organizations from 48 different countries since 1974", in the authors' own 2024 description.
Palgrave Macmillan, 2024 → - 1978The intervention research begins
ISEOR dates its field record from 1978: 2,125+ organisations, 72 sectors, 46 countries, from 4 to 30,000 people.
ISEOR, results page → - 2007The interventions are published, case by case
Buono and Savall edit eighteen chapters of SEAM interventions: Brioche Pasquier, a service company, an opera house, the public sector, the United States, Mexico, a multinational, sales and marketing.
Information Age Publishing, 2007 → - 2008The hidden-cost model in English
Savall and Zardet's Mastering Hidden Costs and Socio-Economic Performance: the dysfunction families, the components, and valuation at the organisation's own rates.
Information Age Publishing, 2008 → - 2015The same company, read again
Becoming Agile returns to Brioche Pasquier, the firm of the 2007 chapter, and reads what the practices became once the intervener had left.
Wiley, 2015 → - 2018Forty years, audited by its authors
Cappelletti, Voyant and Savall take stock of the hidden-cost method "forty years after its invention", across 1,854 firms and organisations.
HAL, 2018 → - 2024The method as science-based consulting
Cappelletti, Savall and Zardet restate the approach for sustainability: converting the hidden costs of absenteeism, turnover and underproductivity into economic value.
Palgrave Macmillan, 2024 → - 2026The B2B commercial application
Kihon's research programme: the same model, applied to how B2B companies go to market and win and keep revenue, with doctoral research running beside the practice and a standard every published case has to meet.
The programme →
Why the counts differ: 1974 and 48 countries are the authors' own 2024 description of the approach; 1978 and 46 countries are ISEOR's count of its evaluated intervention research. Each is printed as its source prints it, and neither is Kihon's.
How the work runs
Four phases, as ISEOR has run them since 1978.
Diagnostic, project, implementation, evaluation. Each Kihon engagement follows this cycle, applied to the way a company wins and keeps revenue.
- 1DiagnosticDysfunctions and their cost
- 2ProjectSolutions designed inside
- 3ImplementationActions carried out
- 4EvaluationResults measured
Diagnostic
Dysfunctions and their cost"What is not measured is not managed, and hidden costs are measured nowhere."
The researcher interviews people at every level, sorts what they describe into the six dysfunction families, and works out the hidden costs at the organisation's own rates. The figure is presented back to the people who produced it.
What happens- Interviews across levels, from the executive team to the shop floor
- Each problem sorted by family and traced to what it costs
- Hidden costs worked out, component by component
- The diagnostic shown back to the organisation before anything is proposed
OutcomeA dysfunction map with a hidden-cost figure attached.
TimingThe first phase
Project
Solutions designed inside"A solution received from above is abandoned from below."
A project group formed from inside the organisation designs the fixes, with the researcher helping rather than prescribing. Both the management line and the teams doing the work take part.
What happens- A project group of the people who work inside the system
- Fixes designed against the diagnostic, not against a template
- Both the leadership line and the operating teams involved
- Priorities set by the cost of leaving each problem in place
OutcomeAn improvement project the organisation owns.
TimingAfter the diagnostic
Implementation
Actions carried out"Management tools are the vehicle; the people are the drivers."
The fixes are carried out by the organisation itself, supported by the method's management tools: time management, priority action plans, skills grids, and the periodic agreements that tie improvement to recognition.
What happens- Priority action plans for each unit
- Skills grids and time-management tools introduced
- Periodically renegotiated activity agreements
- Managers trained in the tools as they use them
OutcomeThe actions running in daily management.
TimingThe body of the intervention
Evaluation
Results measured"A result that is not measured against its baseline is an opinion."
Qualitative, quantitative and financial results are measured against where the diagnostic started: what the problems cost before, what they cost now, and what the work itself cost.
What happens- The fall in hidden costs measured against the first diagnostic
- The cost of the work set beside the surplus it produced
- Qualitative and quantitative results recorded with the financial ones
- What remains carried into the next cycle
OutcomeA measured surplus, or a plain account of why not.
TimingThe close of the cycle
Source: the intervention-research cycle as described by Henri Savall and Véronique Zardet in Mastering Hidden Costs and Socio-Economic Performance (2008) and in ISEOR's own brochure; both are listed with their links in the dates above. The phrasing is Kihon's summary; the structure is theirs.
Kihon research programme
The B2B application is built on questions that fieldwork can test.
Kihon applies the ISEOR/SEAM research to how B2B companies win and keep revenue. The programme concentrates on where work breaks down, the cost that goes uncounted, and what changes between growth stages.
What it is applied to
Who does what across marketing, sales and customer success, where work changes hands, how deals are qualified, who covers which accounts, how good the information is, and the routines managers run.
Research questions
How a leak in the way a company wins and keeps revenue becomes visible, which of its costs can be put in numbers, which fixes free up time and money, and which ones hold.
The doctoral question
How hidden costs and dysfunctions evolve as B2B companies with recurring revenue move through growth stages, and how the commercial system should be redesigned in response. Executive DBA, EADA Business School.
Where findings get published
A client finding appears on Case Studies with the starting point, the period observed and the limits shown next to the result.
Follow the work
The framework, the Diagnosis, the notes and the cases.
- 01
The KIHON framework
The ideas the research gives us, the five steps, and the two tests a finding has to pass.
- 02
The Diagnosis
The research run on one company: two months on your own records, ending in a priced fix list and a leadership briefing.
- 03
The newsletter
Not research findings: a real story a day read through one of the six lenses, and the week read together by email on Sunday.
- 04
Case Studies
The standard every case has to meet, and the measured cases that meet it.
FAQ
Research FAQs.
Whose research is this?
The model, the hidden-cost method and the published interventions are the work of Henri Savall, Véronique Zardet and the ISEOR team. Applying them to how B2B companies win and keep revenue is Kihon's research programme, and it is credited that way everywhere on this site.
Is a Diagnosis a research exercise?
No. A Diagnosis is paid work for your company, and what it finds is yours. Whether anything from it enters the research is a separate decision, made in writing, with your authorisation.
How does the doctoral research relate to Kihon's work?
It takes the one question set out in the programme and holds it to a supervised research design at EADA Business School. The practice is wider than the thesis.
Where are the daily notes?
On the Newsletter page. They are Cem's own reading of public stories through the six lenses, written apart from the research.
Research applied to a real company
Find out whether your problem is ready for a Diagnosis.
A short conversation about where you think the leak is and what records exist. The call says what can be shown from them, and what cannot yet.