Understanding Proactive Customer Orientation PDF Download

Author: Dennis Herhausen
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 3834968919
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 202

View

Book Description
Dennis Herhausen examines how managers can successfully probe latent needs and uncover future needs of customers, labeled as proactive customer orientation. Overall, a systematic change process is developed to guide managers that aim to increase their company's proactive customer orientation.

Author: Bill Thomas
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 1118356918
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 224

View

Book Description
Design and implement the ideal customer focus Anticipate provides business readers with a practical how-to approach for taking their customer-supplier relationship to one that is more sustainable and more mutually profitable. Much of the discussion on customer experience has centered on the hospitality or retail industries and has showcased the discrete techniques organizations use to deliver better service and create more satisfied customers. Anticipate extends and integrates those techniques to deliver an end-to-end customer experience that can be applied in any industry, by any type of organization. Get proven guidance on how to design and implement a customer-focused journey that moves beyond the transaction and satisfied customers, to a relationship and culture that creates and leverages loyalty – and the profitability that comes with it. Explains proprietary methods—such as the Customer Focus Maturity Model ® and Value Chain Labs ® —that teach readers the steps and tools organizations use to create, drive and optimize their customer focus. Authors Bill Thomas and Jeff Tobe have used their 10-point framework to guide Fortune 500’s, start-ups as well as non-profits in charting a customer-focused journey that matures, anticipates and delivers increasing levels of loyalty and profitability with their customers, and across their broader value chain. Anticipate will provide you with field-proven steps, tools and examples that you’ll use to take your customer-focused strategy, execution and culture to the ideal level.

Author: Harald Brege
Publisher: Linköping University Electronic Press
ISBN: 9179297943
Category : Electronic books
Languages : en
Pages : 102

View

Book Description
In discussions of firm strategy, proactivity is often mentioned as an enabler of effective goal accomplishment and high performance. However, it is rarely explained what, more precisely, being more proactive actually entails, or even indeed defined what is meant by the term ‘proactivity’ in this particular context. This dissertation seeks to investigate proactivity and its role in shaping firms’ market strategies. From prior research on proactivity in the strategic marketing domain, we know that proactive firms, on average, develop more radical innovation, are better at managing complex and highly competitive environments, and seem to achieve higher business performance. However, few, if any, of these prior studies properly define proactivity and take a more holistic perspective on its impact on firms’ market strategies. In this dissertation I propose a definition of proactivity through three main proactive characteristics: being future-oriented, taking the initiative, and driving change. Thus, a proactive firm does not wait for things to happen and then react to those events. Instead, it keeps a long-term horizon on its scanning for market intelligence and takes action before things happen, in order to create the change needed to improve its situation. While certainly not all proactive actions are successes, particularly not if the firm lacks proper awareness of the situation or exceeds its capabilities in its striving to shape events, proactive firms do have access to a broader set of opportunities than their less proactive competitors. To understand how proactivity influences market strategies, it is first necessary to understand market strategy itself a bit closer. I define market strategies as firms’ strategies for creating customer value. According to the market orientation literature, the basis of achieving long-term high firm performance is to consistently provide customers with superior value to that of the competition. Thus, firms’ market strategies are squarely at the center of their efforts to become more successful. To study these strategies and the effects they have, it is necessary to go beyond strategy documents and study the actual activities that firms perform to implement them. A market strategy, in my conceptualization, can thus be perceived as a coherent set of activities aimed at fulfilling certain goals, leading to the creation of customer value. These activities can then be further categorized according to the strategic orientations that drive the firm’s strategy-making, with customer orientation, competition orientation and innovation orientation being the orientations that have the most impact on market strategies. From this conceptual foundation, the dissertation takes four different approaches to investigating proactive market strategies, each presented in one of the four appended papers. In the first paper, a conceptual typology of different types of market strategies based on different value-creation logics – which are the combinations of responsiveness and proactivity that influence a firm’s value-creation efforts – is presented. In the second paper, the market strategies of five proactive firms are investigated to find three generic proactive market strategies, each representing a typical way for firms to employ proactivity in their market strategies. The third paper uses fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis to investigate the configurations of proactivity, market environment and different market strategies that consistently lead to high market-strategic effectiveness. Finally, the fourth paper goes more in-depth in exploring the activities that firms employ to create value for customers, with particular focus on the different activities that are performed during different stages of contact with a customer. Through this thorough investigation of proactive market strategies, this dissertation presents a holistic view of proactivity and its impact on firms’ market strategies and their associated activities. As this is the first proper holistic view of proactivity in market strategy and also the first attempt to properly define proactivity in the market-strategic context, the dissertation also provides directions for future research. ”Vi måste vara mer proaktiva” är en fras som säkerligen har dragits på många strategimöten. I såväl internationaliserade jättar som lokala småföretag, tjänsteföretag likväl som tillverkande industrier, har det i styrelserum, ledningsmöten, pratats om behovet att vara mer proaktiv. Det uppenbara är att proaktivitet ses som något positivt, något som kan hjälpa företaget bli bättre, mer konkurrenskraftigt, och så vidare. Men vad menar man egentligen med att vara proaktiv i det här sammanhanget? Och hur påverkar det egentligen företags prestationsförmåga? Harald Brege vid Linköpings Universitet har studerat proaktivitet och hur företag kan använda det för att öka effektiviteten på sina marknadsstrategier, d.v.s. deras strategier för att skapa kundvärde. Proaktivitet är en nyckel som kan låsa upp möjligheter för företag att bli bättre på att hantera en föränderlig och komplex omvärld och stärka sin konkurrenskraft. Slår man upp ordet ”proaktiv” i SAOL får man veta att det betyder förebyggande eller förutseende, men för att kunna användas som ett verktyg för strategiutveckling behövs en mer användbar definition än så. Ur ett strategiskt perspektiv så har proaktivitet tre huvudsakliga komponenter: att vara långsiktig, att ta initiativet och att driva förändring. Det viktigaste för ett proaktivt företag är att inte vara passiva och vänta på att något händer som tvingar dem till förändring eller att bara reaktivt agera på det som finns i omvärlden. Istället så blickar man framåt, identifierar de potentiella sätt som en situation kan utvecklas på och tar sedan initiativet och agerar för att förändra situationen så att den passar företaget bättre. Dock så räcker det inte bara att bli proaktiv och så får man stora vinster på direkten. För att proaktiviteten ska bli framgångsrik så måste ett företag dels arbeta för att skaffa en grundlig förståelse av sin omgivning, dels se till de olika delarna i deras marknadsstrategi hänger ihop och arbetar mot samma mål. Är strategin otydlig eller om företaget håller på med saker de inte har insikt i så är proaktivitet istället sannolikt att ge dåliga resultat. Genom att arbeta för att förstå sina kunder på djupet så kan proaktiva företag snabbt komma med lösningar till behov, inklusive behov som kanske inte ens kunderna själva hade identifierat. Genom att aktivt arbeta med att förändra kunders uppfattning av vad en leverantör ska göra för dem och att påverka politiker och andra intressenter så kan proaktiva företag forma sina marknader för att bättre passa dem. Genom att driva produktutveckling som fokuserar på morgondagens produkter och att testa nya möjligheter, inte bara småförbättringar av samma gamla produkter, så kan proaktiva företag skapa innovativa nya erbjudanden som vänder upp och ner på marknaden. Dessa tre exempel belyser de tre generiska proaktiva marknadsstrategier som har identifierats: kundengagemang, marknadsformande, och innovationsledarskap.

Author: Harald Brege
Publisher: Linköping University Electronic Press
ISBN: 9176852679
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 99

View

Book Description
How can firms become more successful and achieve higher business performance? How can they manage more complex and dynamic markets and maintain a high competitiveness? The answer is: through a more proactive approach to managing the market and creating customer value. This thesis explores proactive market strategies, which are firm’s proactive strategies for creating, communicating, and delivering superior value to their customers, thereby achieving superior business performance. Prior literature in market orientation has touched the area of proactiveness in firms’ approach to the market, but never properly defines proactiveness and lacks a clear connection to actual firm activities. Thus, in order to better understand how firms can gain the performance benefits from proactiveness, this thesis sets out to explore what proactiveness in a market-strategic context entails and what proactive activities firms perform in implementing their proactive market strategies. The research is based on two papers, each detailing one of the two complementary branches of the research. The first paper presents the conceptual work, focusing on a typology of marketoriented strategic behaviors, which are important for understanding how firms can gain the potential performance benefits of market orientation and how they can achieve behavioral fit among their activities. The second paper presents the empirical work, focusing on the qualitative case study performed and the themes of proactiveness that emerged from it. These papers are then synthesized into a holistic view of proactive market strategies in the thesis. The thesis finds that proactiveness at the firm level in a marketing context means a firm is future-oriented, initiative-taking, change-inducing, and creative. With a basis in this definition and the extensive literature on market orientation, the thesis presents conceptual developments that are important for understanding proactiveness in market strategy, such as a framework for understanding market strategies through firm activities and one for identifying and categorizing different types of proactive activities. Furthermore, the thesis gives more detailed descriptions of the case firms and how their proactive activities help them achieve success. This results in a thorough exploration of proactive market strategies, which contributes to the marketing and strategic management literatures by clearly defining proactiveness, conceptualizing and describing proactive market strategies, and delineating proactive firm activities to better understand how firms are being proactive. In doing so, the thesis provides interesting directions for future research and presents interesting implications for managerial practice.

Author: Fiona Schweitzer
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 0

View

Book Description
The extent to which the intensity of R&D employees' interaction with market-oriented employees, proactive customer orientation, and responsive customer orientation affect the ability to reduce product-related uncertainties at the fuzzy front end of innovation was analyzed. They investigated 160 product innovation projects in various high-tech industries and identified proactive customer orientation as an important moderator of the link between R&D employees' interaction with market-oriented employees and the reduction of product-related uncertainties at the fuzzy front end. They also found that responsive customer orientation diminishes the ability to reduce product-related uncertainties at the fuzzy front end. The theoretical and managerial implications of the results are discussed.

Author: Mbachu Innocent Chijioke
Publisher: LAP Lambert Academic Publishing
ISBN: 9783659306341
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 124

View

Book Description
In today's globalized service industry, a well implemented preliminary process of integrating customers plays an active role in the development of new products and services. Successful customer orientation by doing things not exactly as articulated by customers, but by doing things in a diverse way is said to yield successes in a competitive business environment. This book presents the findings of a qualitative research work conducted on a product-based service (PBS) industry in the Smaland region of Scandinavia. In attributes to some of its rich findings, shows that not only by a company demonstrating a reactive or proactive orientation in identifying customers' needs leads to new service ideas, but more comprehensively is that the approach of company reactiveness to customers can also lead to proactiveness. The qualitative research findings & its impeccable conclusion which received an individual top grade from tutors and examiners in Linnaeus University School of Business in an academic year are well detailed and documented in this book. Additionally, this book contains meaningful managerial implications that are key relevance in any competitive business environment."

Author: Agnieszka Zakrzewska-Bielawska
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 303030549X
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 461

View

Book Description
This proceedings volume provides a fresh perspective on current challenges in cooperation and coopetition in the age of Industry 4.0. Featuring selected papers from the 10th Conference on Management of Organizations’ Development (MOD) held in Zamek Gniew, Poland, this volume extends the knowledge of cooperation and coopetition, presents analytic tools used in the research, considers the potential impact of Industry 4.0 on collaboration, and provides recommendations for managerial practice. Interorganizational relations have been a relevant topic in the management sciences in recent years. Globalization, social, cultural, and technological progress are among the factors shaping the environment for collaboration, determining the conditions for development and defining a set of new challenges that managers have to face in today's knowledge-based economy. This book, therefore, explores emerging problems of organizational development in the light of the needs and challenges of Industry 4.0. Combining the latest theory and practice, the volume provides a realistic outlook on the network economy and interdependencies both within and between sectors.

Author: Harald Brege
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 0

View

Book Description
How can firms become more successful and achieve higher business performance? How can they manage more complex and dynamic markets and maintain a high competitiveness? The answer is: through a more proactive approach to managing the market and creating customer value. This thesis explores proactive market strategies, which are firm's proactive strategies for creating, communicating, and delivering superior value to their customers, thereby achieving superior business performance. Prior literature in market orientation has touched the area of proactiveness in firms' approach to the market, but never properly defines proactiveness and lacks a clear connection to actual firm activities. Thus, in order to better understand how firms can gain the performance benefits from proactiveness, this thesis sets out to explore what proactiveness in a market-strategic context entails and what proactive activities firms perform in implementing their proactive market strategies. The research is based on two papers, each detailing one of the two complementary branches of the research. The first paper presents the conceptual work, focusing on a typology of marketoriented strategic behaviors, which are important for understanding how firms can gain the potential performance benefits of market orientation and how they can achieve behavioral fit among their activities. The second paper presents the empirical work, focusing on the qualitative case study performed and the themes of proactiveness that emerged from it. These papers are then synthesized into a holistic view of proactive market strategies in the thesis. The thesis finds that proactiveness at the firm level in a marketing context means a firm is future-oriented, initiative-taking, change-inducing, and creative. With a basis in this definition and the extensive literature on market orientation, the thesis presents conceptual developments that are important for understanding proactiveness in market strategy, such as a framework for understanding market strategies through firm activities and one for identifying and categorizing different types of proactive activities. Furthermore, the thesis gives more detailed descriptions of the case firms and how their proactive activities help them achieve success. This results in a thorough exploration of proactive market strategies, which contributes to the marketing and strategic management literatures by clearly defining proactiveness, conceptualizing and describing proactive market strategies, and delineating proactive firm activities to better understand how firms are being proactive. In doing so, the thesis provides interesting directions for future research and presents interesting implications for managerial practice.

Author: Group of Authors
Publisher: Czech Institute of Academic Education
ISBN: 8088203333
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 134

View

Book Description
International Academic Conferences: Management, Economics and Marketing (IAC-MEM) Teaching, Learning and E-learning (IAC-TLEl) Engineering, Transport, IT and Artificial Intelligence (IAC-ETITAI)

Author: Fiona Schweitzer
Publisher: World Scientific
ISBN: 1786345382
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 308

View

Book Description
This book provides the knowledge necessary for succeeding in a world where companies increasingly work side-by-side with customers to create new products and services. It is a pivotal navigation tool that helps cruise the ocean of customer integration methods and explains how the methods work, when to choose which, and how to seize advantages while avoiding pitfalls.This title is an essential read for research and development managers, marketing professionals, and other practitioners who are involved in new product development to apply customer integration methods effectively and efficiently to drive new product development success. While the application of methods is no guarantee of success, knowledge of the correct selection and appropriate application increases the probability of new product and service development success. Rich in theoretical frameworks, research findings, and practical information about customer integration methods, Innovation Heroes will help the reader appreciate the value of customers as an innovation resource and ways to profit from them.