The pursuit of customer centricity

Abstract

The literature on customer centricity is large and growing, as befits the study of a concept that is arguably at the core of marketing theory and practice. At this point in time, however, there are two troubling aspects of our understanding of customer centricity: (1) There is significant variance in the understanding of the basic concept, illustrated most clearly in (Mier and Jaworski’s Customer Centricity: Definitions, Archetypes, and Future Research 2024) recent discovery of over 50 distinct definitions in the literature, and (2) While evidence shows favorable returns from customer centric initiatives, in practice, many firms struggle to make such initiatives profitable and sustainable. Here, we explore the concept of customer centricity with two senior executives in the medical technology industry. The interviews highlight the complex layers of customer-centric practice in an organization and reinforce the fact that a process of broader organizational change is fundamental to the adoption of any customer-centric operating model. The interviewees provide especially important insight into how an organization in an advanced stage enables customer-centric practice in ways that synergistically enhance its absorptive capacity and widen its view of growth opportunity, as well as the key sources of resistance in earlier stages of adoption.