Publications

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Research Summary

Hybrid organizing

By: Julie Battilana

While historically the commercial and social sectors have evolved on fairly separate tracks, over the last 30 years we have witnessed a blurring of the boundaries between these two sectors. In an effort to account for this transition, Professor Battilana’s second... View Details

Research Summary

Nature of Organizations

By: Regina E. Herzlinger

Why do non-profit, public, and private business organizations exist? This project, begun in 2005, will became a seminar in 2007, focusing on the unique missions of these organizational forms and the resulting mechanisms for effective oversight.

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April 2011 (Revised May 2011)
Case

EMC2: Delivering Customer Centricity

By: Thomas Steenburgh and Jill Avery

This case introduces the concept of customer centricity and traces its development at EMC, the world's leading data storage hardware and information management software company. EMC's customers had historically relied on EMC salespeople to guide them through the... View Details

Keywords: Business Model; Interpersonal Communication; Customer Relationship Management; Knowledge Acquisition; Marketing Strategy; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Salesforce Management; Social and Collaborative Networks; Internet; Information Technology Industry

January 1995 (Revised October 1995)
Case

Citibank: Global Customer Management

By: Michael Y. Yoshino and Thomas W. Malnight

Describes Citibank's worldwide operations, which include activities in developing and developed markets. The bank's structure also varies across markets and regions, varying from autonomous national affiliates to an industry/product-based structure in its domestic U.S.... View Details

Keywords: Customer Focus and Relationships; Global Range; Cross-Cultural and Cross-Border Issues; Multinational Firms and Management; SWOT Analysis; Emerging Markets; Banking Industry; United States

December 1992 (Revised June 1993)
Case

ACTC Customer Service Department

Focuses on the young general manager of a new cable TV system and on its customer service department. Jeanne LaFrance, the general manager, has an uneasy feeling about the way in which the department is being managed. She sees symptoms of what she suspects are serious... View Details

Keywords: Management; Problems and Challenges; Planning; Customer Focus and Relationships; Performance Evaluation; Telecommunications Industry

Teaching Interest

Designing Winning Organizations

The course focuses on only one thing: how to design an organization that executes strategy better than competitors. This course will not teach you how to formulate strategy. Instead, taking strategy as given, you will learn the practical tools, tips, and techniques... View Details

January 1991 (Revised January 1993)
Case

Xerox Corp.: The Customer Satisfaction Program

In August 1990 the president and executive vice president of Xerox are reviewing the progress made on its customer satisfaction program. The emphasis placed on the program, the success of the program to date, and the drive to achieve the corporate goals of customer... View Details

Keywords: Customer Satisfaction; Consumer Products Industry; Electronics Industry

January 2004 (Revised July 2006)
Background Note

Incentives within Organizations

By: Brian J. Hall

Serves as a brief introduction to incentive design and implementation. The analysis first locates incentive strategy within the larger structure of organizations and markets and then helps to define the central components and difficulties of incentive design. Focuses... View Details

Keywords: Organizations; Motivation and Incentives

December 2014 (Revised October 2015)
Case

Iz-Lynn Chan at Far East Organization (Abridged)

By: Linda A. Hill, Anthony J. Mayo and Dana M. Teppert

This case describes how to champion and implement organizational change from the middle by recounting the experiences of Iz-Lynn Chan at Far East Organization. View Details

Research Summary

Managing Customer Information

By: Frances X. Frei

After a service offering is implemented, firms routinely collect significant amounts of data, including customer, employee, and firm financial data. However, service firms are not nearly as effective as they could be in taking advantage of these data. This research... View Details

February 2007 (Revised May 2008)
Supplement

Bancaja: Developing Customer Intelligence (B)

In 1996, CEO Fernando Garcia Checa wanted to make customer analytics a part of Bancaja's new strategy. Bancaja, a savings bank based in Valencia, Spain, was expanding and wanted to exploit customer information to increase commercial effectiveness. At the same time, it... View Details

Keywords: Customer Relationship Management; Credit Cards; Analytics and Data Science; Knowledge Use and Leverage; Marketing Strategy; Banking Industry; Spain

June 2018
Article

Personal and Social Usage: The Origins of Active Customers and Ways to Keep Them Engaged

By: Clarence Lee, Elie Ofek and Thomas Steenburgh

We study how digital service firms can develop an active customer base, focusing on two questions. First, how does the way that customers use the service postadoption to meet their own needs (personal usage) and to interact with one another (social usage) vary across... View Details

Keywords: Customer Engagement; Adoption Routes; Word-of-Mouth; Digital Marketing; Bayesian Estimation; Customers; Communication; Consumer Behavior; Marketing; Internet and the Web; Analytics and Data Science

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14 Jul 2003
Research & Ideas

Keeping Your Balance With Customers

Internet and database software, the customer can now initiate the business transaction, not simply respond to the salesperson's overture. Instead of being on the end of the value chain ("product push"), the View Details

Keywords: by Robert S. Kaplan & David P. Norton

16 Jan 2006
Research & Ideas

What Customers Want from Your Products

Marketers have lost the forest for the trees, focusing too much on creating products for narrow demographic segments rather than satisfying needs. Customers want to "hire" a product to do a job,... View Details

Keywords: by Clayton M. Christensen, Scott Cook & Taddy Hall; Consumer Products

19 Oct 2010
Conference Presentation

Reorganize for Resilience: Putting Customers at the Center of Your Organization to Realize Profitable Growth

By: Ranjay Gulati

Keywords: Customers; Organizations; Growth and Development; Profit

February 2007 (Revised May 2007)
Case

Bancaja: Developing Customer Intelligence (A)

In 1996, CEO Fernando Garcia Checa wanted to make customer analytics a part of Bancaja's new strategy. Bancaja, a savings bank based in Valencia, Spain, was expanding and wanted to exploit customer information to increase commercial effectiveness. At the same time, it... View Details

Keywords: Customer Relationship Management; Banking Industry; Spain

February 2013 (Revised March 2013)
Case

Agero: Enhancing Capabilities for Customers

By: Robert Simons and Natalie Kindred

This case illustrates the importance of choosing a primary customer as the basis for organization design. Cross Country Group managers adjusted resource allocation, organization design and performance measures over time to transform Cross Country Group from an... View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurial Management; Entrepreneurial Gap; Entrepreneurship; Auto Industry; Insurance; Performance Management; Performance Measurement; Performance Measures; Performance Pressure; Decisions; Family Business; Resource Allocation; Organizational Design; Customer Focus and Relationships; Performance Evaluation; Growth and Development Strategy; Service Industry