In the early 2000s, there was a rush by organizations to outsource and offshore many call centres because of the significant cost savings that could be achieved. But offshoring has often led to a reduction in customer satisfaction, so businesses are increasingly bringing their critical customer service call centre operations back ‘onshore’. At the same […]
Read More… from Homeworking Beats Outsourcing: a 6 Step Model
This research sought to learn more about the strategic, functional and tactical priorities of marketers for the future. What they found was a rapidly changing focus in marketing strategies, and a sharp divergence between British and continental European firms. The survey results indicate three top marketing priorities for companies in 2013: Taking advantage of the opportunities […]
Some researchers argue that consumers form a relationship with brands that in many ways mirror social relationships. Pankaj Aggarwal, a marketing professor at the Rotman School of Management, and Richard P. Larrick, a professor of management at Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business, bolster that research with studies that focus on the issue of fairness. […]
Read More… from Consumers/Brand Relationships and Fair Treatment
Ethan Mollick, the Edward B. and Shirley R. Shils Assistant Professor of Management at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, has conducted extensive research on how user communities — product users and informal groups of amateurs — contribute to the development of innovative products. Apple’s App Store is perhaps the most famous example […]
By squeezing suppliers and customers hard, particularly in difficult economic times, you can get results very quickly. But it does have a cost of consequences. The last five years have seen a spike in instances of hardball negotiation, with companies exerting very aggressive, often manipulative techniques. Whenever there is a crisis businesses tend to look […]
Read More… from Win-Win Negotiation to Create Long-term Value
There are two basic types of exchanges employed by people when forming new relationships: incremental exchanges and constant exchanges. In the former, we ‘test the water’ and build relationships gradually through incremental steps of commitment; in the latter we take ‘leaps of faith’ in each other and relations gets off to a quick start. So […]
Read More… from Business Relationships: Test the Water or Take a Leap of Faith?
How are managers today using social media tools and how important are those tools becoming to their organizations? In collaboration with Deloitte, MIT Sloan Management Review conducted a survey of nearly 3,500 executives to gain insight into, and a richer understanding of, how organizations are leveraging social media and social networks. They define “social business” […]
