Building Customer-centric Organizations: Shaping Factors and Barriers

Abstract

Although the number of companies declaring their commitment to the concept of customer centricity is increasing, many of these companies are struggling to actually shape their organization accordingly. In this article we share the results of our research, which aims to identify key shaping factors that help organizations move towards customer centricity, and key barriers that typically deter organizations from becoming customer-centric. Based on a literature review and field research among both practitioners and academics, we have identified a set of nine shaping factors and three barriers to building customer-centric organizations and explored these in more detail. Our study suggests that there are no simple recipes or shortcuts for organizations to become customer-centric. Instead, companies can reap sustainable competitive advantage from evolving the ability to master nine shaping factors and evade three barriers to customer centricity.

Lösungsansätze

“…Aus organisatorischer Sicht bedeutet Customer Centricity, dass Unternehmen stetig lernen und damit Fehler zulassen müssen. Dies steht häufig im Widerspruch zu typischen Handlungsweisen und Anreizsystemen in Unternehmen (Hemel & Rademakers, 2016). Eine weitere Barriere ist, dass Fortschritte bei der Kundenorientierung in der Regel in kleinen Schritten erfolgen und damit der kurzfristigen Gewinnoptimierung im Weg stehen (Hemel & Rademakers, 2016), sowie der negative Einfluss von finanziell als unumgänglich gesehenen Sparmaßnahmen auf die Kundenorientierung (Shah et al, 2006).…”

“…Dies steht häufig im Widerspruch zu typischen Handlungsweisen und Anreizsystemen in Unternehmen (Hemel & Rademakers, 2016). Eine weitere Barriere ist, dass Fortschritte bei der Kundenorientierung in der Regel in kleinen Schritten erfolgen und damit der kurzfristigen Gewinnoptimierung im Weg stehen (Hemel & Rademakers, 2016), sowie der negative Einfluss von finanziell als unumgänglich gesehenen Sparmaßnahmen auf die Kundenorientierung (Shah et al, 2006). Zudem müssen Prozesse funktionsübergreifend aufgesetzt werden und Kundenbedürfnisse den richtigen Angeboten zugeordnet werden (Shah et al, 2006).…”

Customer-Centric Service Provision in Academic Libraries in Universities: Systematic Literature Review

“…Customer centricity is the art of creating and maintaining the best customer relationship to offer the best customer service as the organization also gets value from the service. A customer-centric library will ensure users get the service they want satisfactorily and this will give the library a competitive advantage (Hemel & Rademakers, 2016).…”

“…The organizations' operations, activities and philosophy are focused on the client in a client-centric organization and therefore service organizations should indeed confirm that the client is the reason why the organization exists (Sudarshan, 2015). Hemel and Rademakers (2016) define customer centricity as the basis for the process of value creation in an organization; it is the ability to establish and strengthen unique customer relationships and ensures that in as much as the customer benefits because of his needs being met effectively, the organization to benefits because it gains profit in a unique way. Customer centricity is the art of creating and maintaining the best customer relationships in an effort to offer the customer the best service as the organization also gets value from the service.…”

Application of Organizational Agility to Enhance the Predictability of Costs and Increase the Probability of Creating Value

“…However, as Hallberg (2017) states, external value must be based on a subjectivist notion related to the perceived needs and preferences of customers. Placing value creation at the heart of organizational processes has also been described as ‘customer centricity’ (Hemel & Rademakers, 2016). Although the customer is the main stakeholder for whom value can be delivered (Denning, 2015a), there are more stakeholders, for example, the people producing value, usually employees.…”