Customer-centric Companies

Bachelor Thesis, Master Thesis or Project Study

📌 Key facts

• Mission: Analyse and create a roadmap on changing companies from technology to customer focused. • When: Start anytime. Applications are open! • How to apply: Send us an e-mail (at the end of this page) with your CV and a grade report and a tentative research idea (research question, data and methods, possible outcomes with a tentative outline all in word as *.docx)

Contents

• 💡 Background
• 🦾Who We Are
• 🎯 Goals
• 🎓 Profile
• 📚 Further Reading
• 📄 Requirements to any Work
• 📬 How to Apply

💡 Background

Companies have been trying to adopt customer centricity for nearly 20 years now. But the CMO Council reports that “only 14 percent of marketers say that customer centricity is a hallmark of their companies, and only 11 percent believe their customers would agree with that characterization.” Moreover, Bain & Company reports that customer retention is far better for profits than customer acquisition, because increasing customer retention rates by as little as 5% will boost profits by at least 25%. The case for customer centricity is clear. We want you to find out how companies can achieve customer centricity and capitalize on it. You could for example create a roadmap for SMEs aiming to become more customer centric.

🦾Who We Are

The Chair for Strategy and Organization is focused on doing research with impact. This means we do not want to repeat old ideas and base our research solely on the research people did 10 years ago. Instead, we currently research topics that will shape the future. Topics such as Agile Organizations and Digital Disruption, Blockchain Technology, Creativity and Innovation, Digital Transformation and Business Model Innovation, Diversity, Education: Education Technology and Performance Management, HRTech, Leadership and Teams. We are always early in noticing trends, technologies, strategies and organizations that shape the future, which has its ups and downs.

🎯 Goals

• Research academic literature on the topic
• Collect examples of customer-centric companies
• Analyse when, what, and how they transformed the organization to customer centricity
• Develop a guide or recommendations on becoming customer centric

🎓 Profile

• Reliable and self-driven
• Enthusiasm for Customer Centricity / Product Design / Organizational Design
• Ability to do sophisticated internet, desk research, and connect with practitioners
• Passion to learn more about the future and do research with impact

📚 Further Reading

The Path to Customer Centricity - Denish Shah, Roland T. Rust, A. Parasuraman, Richard Staelin, George S. Day, 2006

The concept of customer centricity and its benefits have been discussed for more than 50 years. Despite this fact, many firms are still struggling to fully align themselves to the customer-centric paradigm. This article identifies fundamental issues and challenges that typically deter a firm from becoming customer-centric.

journals.sagepub.com

100 Of The Most Customer-Centric Companies

Being customer centric becomes a cultural way of life for the company and impacts everything from employee engagement to customer experience. Customer-centric companies live and breathe their customers and are laser-focused on providing amazing experiences. Here are the habits of 100 companies.

www.forbes.com

6 Ways to Build a Customer-Centric Culture

Companies have been trying to adopt customer centricity for nearly 20 years now. But the CMO Council reports that "only 14 percent of marketers say that customer centricity is a hallmark of their companies, and only 11 percent believe their customers would agree with that characterization."

hbr.org

Why customer centricity is crucial to your organisation

Many companies focus on trying to sell as many products (or services) as possible, but this strategy is no longer effective. In the 21st century, product centricity has claimed a staggering number of victims, and the ranks of companies going out of business continue to swell each year.

execed.economist.com

Customer-centric digital transformation

Yes, technological advances are driving fundamental market shifts and a new wave of digital-driven disruption. But customers-increasingly seeking always-on, performance-based, and integrated solutions-may be an even greater catalyst. Indeed, customer expectations and demands are creating critical challenges-as well as opportunities-for employees across sales, services, support, and product functions.

www2.deloitte.com

📄 Requirements to any Work

We do not want your research to gather dust in some corner of a bookshelf but make it accessible to the world. Thus, we warmly encourage you to create some or all of the following:

• Infograph - visually represent some of your work (find examples here)
• Slide Deck - summarize your research and possibly present it
• Extract most important sequences from podcasts, videos, and other media
• 3-4 Tweets about the most important findings and summarizing the topic
• optional: Medium Article - let people outside university know about your research and start your personal brand

📬 How to Apply

If you are interested, please contact Prof. Dr. Isabell Welpe (e-mail below) by submitting your CV and grade report. Please also briefly outline your tentative research idea (research question, data and methods, possible outcomes with a tentative outline all in word as *.docx)

We're greatly looking forward to hearing more about you!

👉 welpe@tum.de