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The Customer Centered Enterprise

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The Customer Centered Enterprise

How IBM and Other World-Class Companies Achieve Extraordinary Results by Putting Customers First

McGraw-Hill,

15 min read
10 take-aways
Audio & text

What's inside?

The universe does have a center: your customer.

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Editorial Rating

6

Qualities

  • Applicable

Recommendation

The person with the cash in hand is the real boss, according to Harvey Thompson, proponent of Customer Value Management (CVM). You can make your company more customer-driven using CVM, which he developed at IBM and then implemented at other U.S. and international companies. Thompson identifies the customer’s vision of ideal value, and tells businesses to use that as their guiding star. If you can integrate the best customer value in every system, your company can retain customers, sell more and increase profits. This is not a new theme, but Thompson takes it a little deeper than most as he discusses ways to strategically incorporate CVM, from top management to the front desk. If we were telling him about his reading customers, we’d ask him to shake some dust off the dense, academic language, but otherwise getAbstract recommends to most business leaders this solid book about strategic customer management.

Summary

Customers In Your Face

Today’s competitive global market makes it even more important to understand your customers’ rapidly changing needs. That’s old news, but the increased consumer expectations generated by e-business and the Internet put it in your face yet again: You’ve got to keep the customers satisfied.

Many corporate mission and vision statements nod at customer needs, even though most firms lack a methodical approach to meeting them. They don’t have an "operational framework" set up to respond to customer needs. If you want to carry out your company’s vision of being customer oriented, treat it like any other encompassing objective: Make it part of your institutional operations in every department.

This requires providing proper training and techniques. Good intentions aren’t enough. Take concrete steps to align your customer-focused vision with the way that your company is actually set up to deliver products and services.

To please customers and improve profits, combine better management of your business processes with a revamp of your internal systems to become more customer-friendly. By changing your processes in your customers’ favor, you ...

About the Author

Harvey Thompson is the IBM Global Executive for Customer Value Management Consulting. As corporate program director, he led the development and operations for innovative, customer-focused business process improvement within IBM and other Fortune 500 and Global 1000 companies. He lectures at the Advanced Business Institute in New York as well as the International Executive Education Centers in Brussels, Belgium, and Milan. He frequently speaks on Customer Loyalty Management and his articles have been featured in publications such as the Journal of Business Strategy.

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