Managing Customer-Centricity in Complex B2B Settings: Formulation and Implementation

Customer-centricity is often touted at generating value to organizations and customers, however, its formulation and implementation remains fluid, unreal, and challenging in most sectors and for most organizations. In contributing to the extant literature, this study seeks to empirically conceptualize the processes through which firms formulate and implement customer-centricity in a complex B2B setting. Through a qualitative multiple case studies and abductive analysis, 30 respondents from three complex B2B organizations were interviewed. The data revealed four key drivers of change leading to a shift towards customer-centric organization: technology and innovation, competition, sustainability, and end consumer expectations. Further, the formulation of the customer-centric strategy considers the following: organizational cultural change (both organizational and individual levels), process integration, segmentation of the market for complex B2B markets, defining value network models, and adoption of disruptive technologies. The study outlines an implementation strategy that enjoins firms to develop a comprehensive customer journey touchpoints and customer experience design to capture and address all challenges during the implementation phase. In this logic of shifting to a customer-centric approach, this study presents significant implications for theory and practice.