Edward Elgar Publishing Handbook on Customer Centricity: Strategies for Building a Customer-Centric Organization (Research Handbooks in Business and Management series)

'A must-read for any marketer, be it a curious researcher, entry level manager or senior leader. Chapters in this book offer the right amount of theory and practical implications on how to infuse customer centricity into an organization by making systematic changes to organizational design, strategy, offerings, and capabilities.' - Shrihari Sridhar, Texas A&M University, US 'This would be the first book to purchase if you want to get out of functional silos and build a truly customer-centric organization. This book illustrates that customer centricity is not confined with CRM or segmentation tactics, but rather it requires a major paradigm shift in every aspect of marketing strategy and business operations.' - Steve Samaha, Wells Fargo Bank, US 'The world's renowned scholars in marketing strategy offer very thorough coverage of customer centricity. Each chapter complements the others and shares applicable and deep knowledge regarding how firms should transform the entire organization, from cultures and human capital to structures, to better serve customers.' - Mark B. Houston, Texas Christian University, US 'This book is a comprehensive reference for scholars conducing customer-centricity research. Leading academics illustrate a theoretical framework and empirical insights on how to embrace customer centricity. Executives will find a treasure trove of actionable insights for their companies.' - Vikas Mittal, Rice University, US Drawing on the expertise of leading marketing scholars, this book provides managers and researchers with insights into the fundamentals of customer centricity and how firms can develop it. Customer centricity is not just about segmentation or short-term marketing tactics. Rather, it represents an organization-wide philosophy that focuses on the systematic and continuous alignment of the firm's internal architecture, strategy, capabilities, and offerings with external customers. This philosophy means that to be truly customer-centric, firms need to make multilevel transformations in internal architecture and organizational design, including leadership, metrics, incentives, structure, processes, and systems. These reorganizations are often accompanied by reshaped relational strategies, such as customer loyalty programs and marketing channel strategies that make customer centricity a reality. These changes also need to be backed by reconfigurations of brand and technological capabilities, as manifested in healthy customer-centric brands and in technology systems and skills that enable customer centricity at scale. The contributors to this book provide current thinking and cutting-edge research to further scholars' understanding of this key concept in marketing. Academics teaching or researching customer centricity, consultants implementing customer centricity and managers directly implementing customer centricity in their organizations will come to rely on the Handbook of Customer Centricity. Marketing associations, industry associations and local and university libraries will find the insights within offer critical reflection on the key features of customer centricity and the detailed roadmap to achieve it.