Customer Capitalism

The key take-aways from Sandra's book are valuable for anybody in the Customer Relationship space - which, today, is coming to mean everybody! Sandra's book would make you get out of your company, act and think like the customers who buy your products or service, and make you discover the "value gaps" in your offerings. A great example her book left me with is the idea of "smart cars": European customers who are buying cars are buying short-haul mobility, and the car sellers are in that "activity space". So you got to think about financing, of insurance, of helping with the servicing. If a firm fails to provide these product/service pieces surrounding the activity space, the customer will perceive that value gap, and beware if your competitor thought about that before you!

The death of the New Economy has been greatly exaggerated. That's the message at the heart of Sandra Vandermerwe's new book. While the heady valuations of the late `90s are history, the fundamental changes that technology inspired during that time are here to stay. With that in mind, Vandermerwe presents analyses of tools that business leaders need to survive into the 21st century. The most insightful of these is a breakdown of customer feedback loops and how they can be harnessed to lock in business. The book can't avoid many of the shortcomings that pervade most New Economy literature, like the tendency to advise readers to remake their businesses in anticipation of future customer needs - without commenting on how exactly that can be achieved. Nevertheless, if you're a manager who suspects that the innovations of the last decade might still play a key role in the growth of business, we [...] recommend this book to you.

The final ring of the chain starting with two other books of the same author (" From tin soldiers to russian dolls " and " The eleventh commandment " ). These 3 books gives a comprehensive and multilateral understanding of the interactive processes with the customer (actual and potential ) . A rare example of complete and deep research