Information Masters

As businesses evolve in the new millennium, most firms find themselves in a never ending parade of marketing, service, and loyalty approaches with all the enabling technologies, yet still find themselves only marginally closer to their customers. Why? In essence, most firms have found that these powerful customer approaches require a customer information competency beyond what they currently possess. In response, they have invested over 80% of their customer information investments in technology despite the recent evidence that shows technology only determines 10% of a firm s ability to apply its customer information. Ninety percent of the determinants are non technological in nature and receive relatively little coordinated investment. These determinants lie in the more difficult areas to address people skills, processes, organization structure, culture, leadership, and information itself. As a result, most firms customer successes continue to be tied to short term customer initiatives rather than the systemic ability to understand and create customer value through a superior customer and operational knowledge. Firms are caught in the perpetual cycle of introducing new customer schemes and technology in an attempt to compensate for these underlying weaknesses. Based on research of some of the world s most customer intensive firms, John McKean shows how companies have managed to break out of this self perpetuating cycle to develop an iterative system of customer and operational understanding and value creation rather than the cycles of price and promotion schemes. Most have made the break with the guidance and leadership of a unique breed of information visionaries whose bravery and vision extended beyond the corporation realities of their time. The author documents the tumultuous battles fought to achieve the change and the resulting bottom line payback as they broke free from the legacies of the mass market culture. They have become the true customer masters. They are the Information Masters. They are the Future. While the world is caught in the never ending cycle of price wars, loyalty schemes, and promotional battles, a small group of firms have broken from the frenzy and focused on developing a long term approach toward understanding and creating value for customers and shareholders simultaneously. What is more intriguing than the results they are achieving is where they have invested in customer information competencies and how they have balanced those investments. This book will show you at point blank range where and how the masters have placed their bets in the following elements of customer information competency:

• people skills
• processes
• organization structure
• culture
• leadership
• information
• technology

The author is then able to show us the bottom line benefits for:

• loyalty
• marketing
• profitability
• customer retention
• lifetime value
• market share vs. customer share
• alliances

and thus the real benefits of becoming an Information Master.