Developing customer analytics capability in firms of different ages: Examining the complementarity of outside-in and inside-out resources

Abstract

Customer analytics capability remains underdeveloped among firms despite its potential for enhancing competitiveness. Previous research has predominantly focused on inside-out organizational factors as drivers of customer analytics capability. This paper examines the role of outside-in resource, the complementarity between outside-in and inside-out resources, and their boundary conditions. Specifically, we study how customer orientation culture (an outside-in resource) complements data-driven culture (an inside-out resource) in firms of different ages to drive customer analytics capability and subsequently, firm performance. Using survey data obtained from Canadian firms, we find that customer orientation is not only positively related to customer analytics capability but also reinforces the effect of data-driven culture. We further find that the conditional effect of customer orientation becomes stronger as firm age increases. In particular, among older firms, the impact of data-driven culture is greatest when customer orientation is high, but it becomes nonsignificant when customer orientation is low. We also link these relationships to firm performance using mediation and moderated mediation analyses. Overall, the results suggest that achieving customer analytics excellence and resultant competitive performance requires marketing to continuously act as customer champions and advocate data analytics efforts to ensure the firm embraces an outside-in orientation.