Companies are being forced to react to the growing individualization of demand. At the same time, cost management remains of paramount importance due to the competitive pressure in global markets. Thus, making enterprises more customer centric efficiently is a top management priority in most industries. Mass customization and personalization are key strategies to meet this challenge. Companies like Procter&Gamble, Lego, Nike, Adidas, Land's End, BMW, or Levi Strauss, among others, have started large-scale mass customization programs. This book provides insight into the different aspects of building a customer centric enterprise. Following an interdisciplinary approach, leading scientists and practitioners share their findings, concepts, and strategies from the perspective of design, production engineering, logistics, technology and innovation management, customer behavior, as well as marketing.

Inhaltsangabe:Abstract: The submitted dissertation critically discusses business models in the context of customer dimensions under uncertain market conditions. The following questions summarise the fields of investigation: How do business models adapt to rapidly changing and buyer driven markets? What are the next two steps after Customer Relationship Management? Can the gap in the process chain between Customer Relation Management and Supply Chain Management be bridged and how? How can a method be developed in order to measure the current customer orientation of a company and to compare companies among each other? Are customer oriented companies more profitable? As a deductive research approach is used, beneath a small number of inductive elements, an investigation in both secondary and primary data is imperative. Subsequently a critical review of related literature along with a supporting inquiry is part of the dissertation. The scope of the work includes background information, the discussion of future business models as well as an empiric impression of customer orientation in German small and medium sized enterprises. The most significant conclusions can be recapitulated as follows: Simple customer orientation can lead to less innovation, furthermore to unprofitable business and in the worst case to the elimination of a company. Customer oriented strategy is about building processes that are able to react to any environmental or economical modification as fast as possible. The evolution of Customer Relation Management will lead to new customer driven and pulled business models, including innovative measurement methods like Return on Customer . The gap between Customer Relation Management and Supply Chain Management will in all probability be bridged, new concepts (e.g. Customer Chain Management) will represent this task. A balanced Customer Centric Index, developed as a benchmark instrument as part of the dissertation, shows that only a third of the examined companies can be interpreted as customer oriented , on the other hand Sales & Marketing is regarded as the initial and most influencing process. A statistical connection between being customer oriented and profit could not be proved. As a surprising and unintentional result the survey revealed that focusing on a small market (niche) is, at least for SME, a more profitable business. Eventually the dissertation leaves behind additional questions that could not be [...]

Strategies for leveraging information technologies to improve customer relationships With E-business comes the opportunity for companies to really get to know their customers--who they are and their buying patterns. Business managers need an integrated strategy that supports customers from the moment they enter the front door--or Web site--right through to fulfillment, support, and promotion of new products and services. Along the way, IT managers need an integrated set of technologies--from Web sites to databases and data mining tools--to make all of this work. This book shows both IT and business managers how to match business strategies to the technologies needed to make them work. Claudia Imhoff helped pioneer this set of technologies, called the Corporate Information Factory (CIF). She and her coauthors take readers step-by-step through the process of using the CIF for creating a customer-focused enterprise in which the end results are increased market share and improved customer satisfaction and retention. They show how the CIF can be used to ensure accuracy, identify customer needs, tailor promotions, and more.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 5th International Conference on Business Process Management, BPM 2007, held in Brisbane, Australia, in September 2007. The papers are organized in topical sections on business process maturity and performance, business process modeling, case studies, compliance and change, process configuration and execution, formal foundations of BPM, business process mining, and semantic issues in BPM.

Customer-centric organizations are concerned about shrinking volumes of business, stiffer competition and ever-more demanding consumer expectations which have increased pressure on the bottom line. The ability to successfully manage the customer value chain across the life cycle of a customer is the key to the survival of any company today. Business processes must react to changing and diverse customer needs and interactions to ensure efficient and effective outcomes. This important book looks at the shifting nature of consumers and the workplace, and how BPM and associated emergent technologies will play a part in shaping the companies of the future. BPM's promises are real, but the path to success is littered with pitfalls and shortcuts to failure. Best practices can help you avoid them. If you are just embarking on using its methods and tools, these authors have a wealth of experience to learn from and build on. Whether you are a business manager or an Information Technology practitioner, this special collection will provide valuable information about what BPM can do for you-and how to apply it.

Make customer-centricity tangible, sustainable, and real by implementing structural and systemic changes to the DNA of your company. Businesses need to do more than sell to customers—they need to help them live their best lives. This superior experience is what customers expect and deserve from companies and it’s possible to deliver just that with the framework provided in The Customer Excellence Enterprise: A Playbook for Creating Customers for Life. An enlightening and pragmatic guide, The Customer Excellence Enterprise is for everyone who needs to elevate the customer experience to a fundamental revenue accelerator and value driver. With this fresh perspective on customer-centricity, companies can address the persistent disconnect between their customer-first claims and an often disappointing reality. Wayne Simmons and Tom DeWitt are practitioners and professors of customer excellence. Wayne is a leader in customer excellence and customer experience management at Pfizer, the Fortune 50 global leader in health care and life sciences. Tom is the founder of CXM@MSU, an industry-facing entity designed to advance customer experience management thought and practice, and the founder and architect of North America’s first master’s degree in Customer Experience Management (CXM) at the Broad College of Business, Michigan State University. Together, they expertly frame the complexities of consistently delivering a superior customer experience at enterprise and global scale and provide a compelling case for urgency for companies to take the journey to become a Customer Excellence Enterprise (CXE). Outlining the leadership, organizational, operational, and commercial facets essential for sustained success, The Customer Excellence Enterprise is a comprehensive playbook for any company seeking to differentiate deeply from competitors and win preferred positions in the hearts and minds of today’s discerning customers. With insights into how companies can become structurally and systemically predisposed to deliver exceptional experiences, the authors draw on real-world practice and examples from customer experience “outliers”―companies renowned for consistently improving their customers' lives. Readers will also find: Practical strategies for building a case for urgency and mobilizing all levels of the enterprise to deliver tangible results. Winning methods to build deep emotional connections that lead to lifelong customer relationships. Insights into the habits and ways of working from customer experience industry outliers. The Customer Excellence Enterprise: A Playbook for Creating Customers for Life is a must-have for the boards of directors, C-Suite executives, line of business leaders and managers, marketers, sales teams, product leaders, human resources, customer experience, operations and other customer-facing professionals tasked with answering pressing questions like, Why are exceptional customer experiences still so rare? and If customers are truly the most valuable of corporate assets, why are they consistently being treated so poorly? This book serves as an invaluable tool and urgent call to action for anyone committed to elevating how customers are viewed, treated, and valued—the keys to creating customers for life.

One of the first widely available resources on the subject of adaptive enterprise. The text takes on a new and burgeoning field of study and development and provides the opportunity to help shape and guide the thinking of decision makers in the world of both public and private sectors. The authors contribute a wealth of experience from professional situations having worked for IBM Global Services Consulting Group and SAP Institute for Innovation and Development.

Enhancing Enterprise Intelligence: Leveraging ERP, CRM, SCM, PLM, BPM, and BI takes a fresh look at the benefits of enterprise systems (ES), focusing on the fact that ES collectively contribute to enhancing the intelligence quotient of an enterprise. The book provides an overview of the characteristic domains (i.e., business functions, processes, a