The ability to capture customer needs and to tailor the provided solutions accordingly, also defined as customer intimacy, has become a significant success factor in the B2B space - in particular for increasingly "servitizing" businesses. This book elaborates on the solution CI Analytics to assess and monitor the impact of customer intimacy strategies by leveraging business analytics and social network analysis technology. This solution thereby effectively complements existing CRM solutions.

Originally published in 1987, this paperback, from the author of THE DISCIPLINE OF MARKET LEADERS demonstrates how companies can profit from establishing more co-operative customer-supplier relationships and describes how customer intimacy works, how to implement it and what pitfalls to look out for. Illustrated with examples from top companies.

From Patagonia to Apple, Whole Foods to New Balance, we love our favorite products--and, by extension, the companies that provide them. The emotional connections we form with our beloved brands and services are important relationships--relationships that are potentially worth billions. In the fast-paced, constantly-changing world of the modern marketplace, brands must adapt or perish—strategies, methods, and techniques must evolve to remain effective and relevant. Are you using yesterday’s thinking for tomorrow’s challenges? Brand Intimacy details ways to build better marketing through the cultivation of emotional connections between brand and consumer. The book provides lessons for marketers and business leaders alike who are seeking to understand these ultimate brand relationships and the opportunities they represent. Divided into three sections, Brand Intimacy starts with Context and Understanding. This explains today’s marketing landscape, the effects of technology, consumer behaviors and the advancements around decision making. Through research we discovered that people form relationships with brands the same way they develop relationships with other people. This section provides guidance on how to think about complimentary concepts such as loyalty, satisfaction and brand value. We then explore and compare established approaches and methodologies and showcase why intimacy is a compelling new and enhanced opportunity to build your brand or market your business. The second section, Theory and Model reveals and dimensions the brand intimacy model and dissects it into steps to help you better factor it into your marketing approaches or frameworks. Here you will learn the core concepts and components that are essential to build bonds and the role emotion can play to help you achieve greater customer engagement. You can also review the rankings of the best brands in terms of Brand Intimacy. A summary of our annual research reveals the characteristics of best performers, the most intimate industries, and differences based on geography, age, gender and income. By examining the top intimate brands, we reveal and decode the secrets of the bonds they form with their customers. The third section is Methods & Practice, this details the economic benefits and advantages of a strategy that factors Brand Intimacy. Intimate brands are proven to outperform the Fortune 500 and Standards and Poors’ index of brands. Intimate brands create more revenue and profit and last longer. Consumers are also willing to pay more for a brand they are more intimate with. Conversely, we also explore a series of brand failures and lessons learned to help you avoid common pitfalls in brand management. We articulate the steps to build a more intimate brand as well as share a glimpse on the future where software will play a more important role in brand building. The book outlines a proprietary digital platform that we use to help manage and enable intimacy through collaboration, simulators and real-time tracking of emotions. Business and marketing owners face an increasing difficult task to build brands that rise above the clutter, engage more and grow. Brand Intimacy explains how to better measure, build and manage enduring brands. Brands that are built to inspire as well as profit. Written by experienced marketers and backed by extensive research, Brand Intimacy rewrites the rulebook on how to establish and expand your marketing. The book is equal parts theory, research and practice, the result of 7 year journey and a new marketing paradigm for the modern marketer.

The classic bestseller outlining tactics for any business striving to achieve market dominance What does your company do better than anyone else? What unique value do you provide to your customers? How will you increase that value next year? Drawing on in-depth studies and interviews with the top CEOs in the country, renowned business strategists Michael Treacy and Fred Wiersema reveal that successful companies do not attempt to be everything to everyone. Instead, they win customers by mastering one of three "value disciplines": the highest quality products, the lowest prices, or the best customer experiences. From FedEx to Walmart, the companies that relentlessly focused on a single discipline not only thrived but dominated their industries, while once powerful corporations that didn't get the message, from Kodak to IBM, faltered. Presented in disarmingly simple and provocative terms, The Discipline of Market Leaders shows what it takes to become a leader in your market, and stay there, in an ever more sophisticated and demanding world.

Today's customers are the most demanding in history. They want more, better, faster, and cheaper. Customer Intimacy is brimming with case histories of companies, both large and small, that have discovered the secrets of establishing and maintaining close customer relationships--and have reaped the profits to prove it.

Collecting data is easy for marketers. Figuring out what to do with it is hard. Technology has made it almost routine for com­panies to know exactly when, where, and how their customers shop, both online and off. As soon as someone pulls out a credit card—or even better, a membership rewards card—the data floodgates open. United Airlines knows if you think it’s worth $25 to check a suitcase. Verizon knows how often you call your mom. Hilton knows if you prefer a higher floor and a room away from the elevator. But after gathering and crunching all this cus­tomer data most companies have little or no idea how to use it. They either let it go to waste or abuse it with ill-considered, irrelevant, or even creepy marketing pitches. There’s a much better option, as Bryan Pearson has discovered after twenty years of studying the hidden patterns of consumer behavior. It really is possible to turn customer information into customer intimacy— systematically, efficiently, and without invading anyone’s privacy. And intimacy is the key to long-term loyalty, growth, and profits. As Pearson writes: Customers can only be acquired, churned, and reactivated so many times before they tire of your brand. There is a proven marketing equation in which customers willingly share information with you in the expectation of being better served and valued during future transactions. Capitaliz­ing on that equation is our business responsibility. The Loyalty Leap will give you the tools to per­suade customers to share more information in their own best interests. And it will help you make sense of all that data to build strong cus­tomer relationships. It also shares compelling examples, including: How Shell increased sales while reducing its network of gas stations by giving its best customers incentives to buy from another location. How GameStop offers its PowerUp Rewards members access to such events as the Comic-Con convention. How McDonald’s in Finland used location-based marketing to send special offers to customers near one of its locations, with a 40 percent response rate. How Caesars Entertainment uses data from its 40 million Total Rewards members to draw complete customer profiles, resulting in increased visits. Pearson believes this is one of the most exciting times in the history of marketing, and that loyalty marketing will be increasingly essential for years to come. His book will take you behind the cur­tain to show how the best companies are doing it.