Customer Intimacy and Other Value Disciplines   To today's customers, value can mean any number of things, from convenience of purchase to after-sale service and dependability. But that doesn't mean companies have to excel at everything. A study of market leaders shows they concentrate on one of three value disciplines - operational excellence, customer intimacy, or product leadership - and align their entire operating model to serve that discipline. Companies should choose a value discipline that fits with their existing capabilities and culture and then push themselves relentessly to sustain it. :Michael E. Treacy; Frederik D. Wiersema :Harvard Business Review :1/1/1993 :Article

The Discipline Of Market Leaders: Choose Your Customers, Narrow Your Focus, Dominate Your Market   The premise of the book is that successful companies direct all of their efforts towards operational excellence, product leadership, or customer intimacy. As customers' demands for the highest quality products, best services, and lowest prices increase daily, the rules for market leadership are changing. Once powerful companies that haven't gotten the message are faltering, while others, new and old, are thriving. In disarmingly simple and provocative terms, Treacy and Wiersema show what it takes to become a leader in your market, and stay there, in an ever more sophisticated and demanding world. :Michael Treacy, Treacy & Company LLC and Fred Wiersema, Ibex Partners :Perseus Press :6/1/1996 :Book

Loyalty Rules!: How Today's Leaders Build Lasting Relationships   Loyalty provides the acid test for leadership in today's volatile business environment, and that most leaders deserve failing grades. Reichheld's research demonstrates that effective leaders build relationships upon six bedrock principles of loyalty: Play to win/win: profiting at the expense of partners is a short cut to a dead end; Be picky: membership is a privilege; Keep it simple: complexity is the enemy of speed and flexibility; Reward the right results: worthy partners deserve worthy goals; Listen hard and talk straight: long-term relationships require honest, two-way communication and learning; and Preach what you practice: actions often speak louder than words but together, they are unbeatable. :Frederick F. Reichheld :Harvard Business School Press :7/23/2001 :Article

IT Toolbox CRM   Extensive IT Knowledge & Support Network resources: 24 Targeted Knowledge Bases, 26,023 Documents, Papers, Source Code and Scripts, 1,189 Current News Articles, 72 Newsletters, Link Directories, IT Search Engines, 726 Discussion Groups with 125,452 Active Participants 57,721 Searchable Q&A Messages. Business Intelligence, Database, Data Warehouse, Knowledge Management, CRM, Marketing, Academic Articles, FAQs, Industry Articles, Peer Publishing, Vendor Papers/ , :Portal

The Industrial Marketing Practice Association   Always on the lookout for emerging trends. Provides you a steady stream of useful strategic insights, along with an interpretation of what it all means. You become a thought leader inside your company - an internal marketing expert who is on top of it all. Every month you will receive Industrial Marketing Tips & Tactics. The Industrial Marketing Practitioner, Best Practices, Articles by Publication, Research Paper Reviews, Software, Articles, Discussion Group, Archives,Event Calendar. :Association

The Consortium For Service Innovation   Enables the members' vision of improved support through deeper and more widespread use of well-crafted knowledge. Members work together to significantly improve customer support by developing innovative new strategies, standards, and programs. Provides forums, workshops and conferences to share perspectives, identify common issues and develop new ideas for improving the customer experience with support. :Association

Basing Employee Performance Evaluations on Customer Satisfaction Measures   As an increasing number of firms adopt formalized systems for collecting and analyzing customer opinions, there is increasing interest in using Customer Relationship Assessment information as the basis for performance appraisals, bonuses, and rewards. Given the importance of customer satisfaction, this step seems a natural one. If the system is fair and well administered, most employees will find it relatively easy to commit to personal or departmental objectives based on customer satisfaction objectives, since most already acknowledge that customer opinions are of paramount importance. :Walker Information, Inc :Walker Information, Inc :6/1/2001 :Article

Association for the Advancement of Relationship Marketing (AARM)   Since 1995 the mission has been to provide a forum for the development, understanding and communication of the principles and discipline of CRM, Relationship Marketing, Customer Relationship Management - Enterprise Wide and Direct Marketing. A non-profit organization dedicated entirely to meeting the needs of individuals who wish to understand and apply the concepts of CRM. Comprehensive and thought-provoking insight into all aspects of acquiring, retaining and building sustainable profitability through CRM :Association

Customer Satisfaction Measurement Association   An association of companies that conducts benchmarking studies to identify practices that improve customer satisfaction and the overall operations of members. Objective is to create a cooperative environment where full understanding of the performance and enablers of "best in class" business processes supporting customer satisfaction can be obtained and shared at reasonable cost. :Association

International Customer Service Association (ICSA)   Members are managers, directors, vice-presidents, owners and CEOs of companies of all types and sizes in virtually every industry, manufacturing and nonmanufacturing, from the Fortune 500 to the emerging bluechips. Resources include: ICSA Publications,Industry Surveys, ICSA/E-Satisfy.com, Benchmarking Studies, The Customer Service Excellence Collection, Technology Benchmarking Study, Compensation Study, Special Reports, Bookstore. :Association

American Marketing Association (AMA)   Emphasize the integration of marketing and selling activities within the firm, across networks of partner firms, and throughout the value chain. Interests cover a broad range of topics including relationship management, B2B e-Business, technology management, sales management, value-based marketing, channels, integrated marketing communications, among many others. Marketing Templates, Presentation Support, Public Relations Tools, ROI Enhancers, Statistics Resources, Business Book Summaries. :Association

Customer Retention is not Enough   A recent two-year study of the attitudes of 1,200 households toward companies in 16 industries shows that focusing on smaller changes in customer spending can have as much as ten times more value than concentrating on defections alone. Although, customer retention has become the Holy Grail in industries from airlines to wireless, defecting customers are far less of a problem than customers who change their buying patterns. Today's typical metrics of customer satisfaction and defection don't tell a company how susceptible its customers are to changing their spending patterns. :Chris Buzelli :McKinsey Quarterly :3/1/2002 :Article

The power of pricing   The one-two punch of cyclical and newer factors has eroded corporate pricing power and forced frustrated managers to look in every direction for ways to hold the line. Transaction pricing is the key to surviving the current downturn - and to flourishing when conditions improve. A clear understanding of how revenue leaks away through mismanaged transaction pricing can show companies where lost profits could be regained. New tools are making it easier to manage transaction prices and thus preserve margins and increase operating profits. :Michael V. Marn, Eric V. Roegner, and Craig C. Zawada :The McKinsey Quarterly, 2003 Number 1 :1/1/2003 :Article

The Customer Management Scorecard: A strategic framework for benchmarking performance against best practice.   Current, practical tools to implement customer strategy and process. Includes: 35 recent benchmarks and case studies of good and best customer management practices, a programme manager's checklist - everything for the key stages of planning and team selection, financials and business case, managing change and reviewing and maintaining performance; 10 key approaches for analysing customer worth and behaviour; in-depth coverage of how the Customer Review process works in action; Checklist of measures for assessing commitment rather than mere satisfaction and more. : Optima Media Group :Questionnaire

B2Btalk.org   Not-for-profit resource designed by B2B marketers for B2B marketers - forum, sounding board, advice column, career center and library. B2B marketing strategies, advertising trends and PR tactics. Browse articles, screened industry links, opinion columns, and book reviews. Connect with your peers in ongoing discussion threads, or spark a discussion of your own. Interact with B2B experts during our dynamic, guest-hosted chats. :Portal

What ever happened to Burma-Shave? Pattern thinkers can outsmart brand rivals in a changing marketplace.   A static brand can quickly become irrelevant. But brand innovation also has its risks. Patterns that have played out in other industries can help managers anticipate when and how a brand must change. Current research suggests that pattern thinking can also help to anticipate how and when a brand must evolve. Describes brand patterns: a catalogue of the ways brands evolve. These eighteen patterns, arrayed by type and by incidence, describe how market shifts affect brand strategy. Anticipating which brand patterns are likely to unfold gives managers a critical head start in crafting the next winning moves for their brand. :John Kania and Adrian Slywotzky :Mercer Management Journal :6/1/2000 :Article