Search results

Customer-obsessed organizations put customers first, create exceptional value and enhance business performance. This paper aims to offer a framework for implementing the customer obsession construct.

Using relevant customer value literature, syndicated research and a qualitative analysis, customer obsession insights are offered.

Customer-obsessed companies know their customers’ needs and engage with them to offer the best solutions. Four customer-centric stages are evaluated, and applications of customer obsession in the Now Economy are discussed.

This analysis of customer obsession is largely conceptual and presents a case study in one metropolitan statistical area. Although the findings are insightful, it may not be representative of the US or global health-care market.

Strategic implications relate to a bias for action, types of business obsessions, values alignment and benchmarking. This paper features an in-depth case study on Baptist Health South Florida which assesses customer obsession using a customer value framework.

Customer obsession is a strategic mindset built upon strong leadership, a sound business culture and superior value. While critical to business success, there has been limited scholarly work in this area. This paper fills that gap by providing a managerial approach for understanding this key business priority.

The author explains how an obsession with delivering customer value at Amazon is enabled and driven by customer-driven metrics.

The article describes how at Amazon, metrics are established in advance of every activity and specify what actions are expected to happen in ways that can be measured in real-time.

By virtue it’s action metrics, every activity at Amazon is in effect a genuine scientific experiment focused on whether it is delivering the value to customers.

Everyone is expected to be obsessed with knowing about and enhancing the impact of what they do for the customer.

The article offers a detailed view of the synergy between Amazon’s dedication to real-time measurement of its activities and its obsession with using those activities to deliver customer value.

Discusses the Total Quality culture of Harvester restaurants, concentrating on training to achieve the company′s mission of delivering a high quality service to its guests. Outlines the importance of teamwork in the programme, and provides a case study of the executive team, showing how the system works in practice.

Examines implementation of the total quality culture in Harvester Restaurants, where it is considered a way of life. Maintains that training is vital to attaining the company′s goal of delivering a high quality service to its “guests”.

The paper aims to explore a case of early adoption of the use of social media tools for the purposes of knowledge and information sharing across a supply chain in the UK home insurance market.

The methodology used includes genre and content analysis to analyze empirical data from blogs and posts via a customized social extranet [Engaging in Knowledge Networking via an interactive 3D Social Supplier Network (KNOWLEDGE NETWORK)] involving 130 users over a 13-month period.

The results uncover a set of emerging practices which support both information and knowledge exchange, but which are mainly driven by organizational factors such as buyer power and supplier competitive influencing.

This study has contributed an overall conceptual understanding of reasons behind social media adoption by identifying organizational attributes of buyer power and supplier influence as key antecedents to knowledge sharing within a supply chain.

This paper builds on current thinking in social media theory by providing a window into organizational and supply chain attributes that can explain social media adoption within the context of knowledge sharing supply chains. A systematic classification of user posts over an extended period enabled this work to illuminate not only emerging knowledge sharing practices across a buyer-led supply chain but also the effects of buyer power on users in an online community.

The article offers a clear and succinct account of the Amazon approach to Agile management (though it doesn’t call it that, and offers best practices to enable others to learn how to think–and act–like Amazon.

The article draws on the insights and experiences of John Rossman an Amazon senior manager who was an effective innovator for the company.

Amazon has a distinctive approach to implementing the three principles of Agile: 10;∙9; Customer-obsessed. 10;∙9; Small is beautiful. 10;∙9; Networks.

Customer obsession at Amazon is enabled and driven by customer-driven metrics.

Drawing on his experience innovating for the company, John Rossman describes in detail how Amazon created an environment with very different values and behaviors, an approach that employs the principles of Agile management.

This paper aims to address the concept of customer advocacy through storytelling, urban legends and folklore. The main purpose of the paper is to identify firms that are frequent subjects of positive customer storytelling, and to examine these firms for common practices.

Following an assessment of various literature, this paper incorporates a two‐stage design. The first stage identifies a set of companies that are frequently the subject of customer service storytelling. The second stage takes a grounded theory approach, utilizing a thematic analysis of data collected in relation to the exemplar firms.

Ten exemplar firms were identified. Themes and sub themes were drawn from data about the firms and categorized into ten theme clusters. A single theme – related to customer and employee obsession – was determined to be the common thread. An assessment of customer and employee practices from the exemplar firms is provided to give illustrations of specific practices and beliefs.

When customers and non‐customers engage in positive dialogue, narrative and storytelling about a business, it is seen as the ultimate marketing outcome. By understanding some of the practices of firms that are subjects of customer service folklore, managers can gain insights into how customer and employee treatment strategies can be incorporated into their businesses.

Storytelling and myths have been examined (and utilised) from the perspective of organizational culture, communication and change – but rarely from the perspective of customer‐to‐customer communications.

The purpose of this paper is to contrast three management orientations relevant for exporters: export, technology and customer orientations. The general hypothesis is that all orientations covariate positively with export performance. However, an alternative hypothesis regarding customer relations is propounded (negative impact on performance).

Regression‐based techniques are used.

The results support the hypotheses that export performance increases with export commitment. Technology orientation correlates positively with export performance. On the other hand, the much venerated customer orientation shows negative correlation with export performance.

This paper argues that customer orientation may turn into what might be called customer obsession, without due attention to cost consequences and strategic orientation. Also, too much customer orientation may lead the firm away from its ability to innovate, leaving the company behind its competitors in the longer term. The interaction between customer and technology orientation gave no effect.

Many organizations are investing much time and effort in the management of quality. A few enlightened ones even have a vision to be the best. G. Howland Blackiston, the president of the Juran Institute, noted recently that, “All around the world companies are waking up to ‘quality’. Everyone is touting quality. Many are attempting it. Some organizations have gotten enviable results by using the concepts of ‘managing for quality’ dramatically to lower their costs, increase their profits and become more competitive in an increasingly competitive market. For these winners, quality has become an integral part of their business strategy”.

For many, quality circles have been a struggle, total quality management has been something to “get around to one day” and continuous improvement has just been another expression meaning total quality management, which, of course is something that we will “get around to one day”. Worse, the acronyms used ‐ QC, TQM, CI ‐ have joined such exotic practices as JIT (Just‐in‐Time inventory), CAD‐CAM (computer‐aided development and manufacturing) and more recently BPR (business process re‐engineering) in an alphabet soup of consultant‐led packages, available to the discerning manager ‐ at a price.