Introduction to the Handbook on Customer Centricity

Abstract

Customer centricity appears in a wide array of industries and companies and it manifests across different organizational levels. Therefore it is not surprising that various definitions of customer centricity have emerged from both academic and business communities. In academic settings, researchers often describe the concept by comparing it to product centricity (Rust, Moorman, and Bhalla 2010; Sawhney 2001; Shah et al. 2006). Yet unlike product centricity, which embraces an inside-out perspective, customer centricity goes hand-in-hand with an outside-in perspective, requiring a customer-centric culture (Deshpandé, Farley, and Webster 1993) and the new organizational structures that dismantle internal product silos (Day and Moorman 2010; Gulati 2010). Other researchers explain customer centricity in a context of targeting strategies or customer valuation process (i.e., evaluating the value of specific customers) (CMO Council 2013; Fader 2012). Table 1.1 provides a summary of definitions, reflecting the academic perspective on customer centricity. In the business community, practitioners share a related but more action-oriented perspective on customer centricity (Booz & Company 2004; Economist Intelligence Unit 2008), as summarized in Table 1.2. The managerial perspective focuses on the imperative for executing customercentric strategies and the required internal transformations that span organizational, relational, and technological aspects (Accenture 2008; Deloitte 2014; PwC 2011). Both these perspectives agree though: The primary purpose of being customer-centric is to create value for both customers and firms by developing a deep understanding of customers and building long-term customer relationships (Boston Consulting Group 2013; Fader 2012; Sheth, Sisodia, and Sharma 2000). It requires a long-term orientation and leadership support from the top to make it an organizational reality. Synthesizing academic literature and business reports, we define