AboutEric Hofer Expertise General questions about bringing American and British business models/ideas to Europe and CIS (former soviet countries).
Experience My main area of expertise is in IT, Consulting and Fast-Moving Consumer Goods (FMCG). I've worked in the US, UK, Denmark, France, Spain, Hungary, Czech Republic, the Philippines, Poland, Azerbaijan, Serbia, Saudi, Slovakia, Switzerland, Germany, Turkey and Greece. My background is in company start up (soft drinks, snack foods, distribution, real estate management and wireless services), IT processes, outsourcing IT, etc.
Publications Budapest Sun
Education/Credentials BA from SUNY Purchase, New York.
Graduate work at NYU, Courant Institute of Mathematics.
Past/Present clients Pepsi, British Telecom, Pernod-Ricard, Digital, Chase Manhattan Bank, British Steel, Matutano, General Bottlers, PepsiAmericas, A&P doo, Frito-Lays, Britvic, Dataserv, AT&T, Kidder Peabody
Expert: Eric Hofer Date: 6/18/2008 Subject: student from india
Question Respected sir,
This is sriram, pursuing my MBA @ sri sathya sai university,puttaparthy.Iam working on a project -"an exploratory study on -The customer-centric organization". Different companies percieve customer-centricity differently based on loose assumptions..Now comes my request- drawing from your experience can you give me any insights,articles regarding companies that have walked the talk on customer-centricity and how they realigned their processes to do so.. thank you so much for the patient read.. have a great day..!
Answer I think in terms of research, it's up to you to do that. My doing it for you defeats you learning the skills that I would think is why you're doing an MBA.
Some thoughts though on Customer Centric.
I agree wholely with your assessment; though the term is well-known, there are many interpretations.
This particular entry claims that the Wharton School started a program on this particular idea. The overall crux being that by paying attention to your customers' needs your own company will be richly rewarded.
For me, it's wishful thinking. The customer centricity approach in this context denudes your own enterprise of kpi monitoring that should drive internal efficiencies ensuring that you can apply sufficient resources to serving customers; further, not all customer demands are the same, of the same cost, implemented the same way, etc. Lacking a cohesive vision and "one or 2 sizes fit all" approach means customization - not necessarily profitability or survival.
Having said that, taking the spirit of the concept of identifying customer needs first and then proposing products, solutions, services and appearing as a consultant to one's customers can be a "more" winning approach; at the same time a company retains kpis that continue to monitor areas that could (if not watched) turn into runaway costs / leaks.
