Managing Customers as Investments: The Strategic Value of Customers in the Long Run [Hardcover]

Sunil Gupta (Author), Donald Lehmann (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 29, 2005

What's a customer really worth? Can you find out, without endlesslycomplex modeling? And once you know, what should you do with thatknowledge? Managing Your Customers as Investments has the answers.You'll learn simple ways to get reliable customer value information--ina form you can use. You'll discover how to use it to measure marketingeffectiveness, generate improvements throughout the entire customerrelationship lifecycle, and improve decision-making. Everyone tells youto manage your business around customers. This book gives you the toolsto do it.

Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

What's a customer really worth? Can you find out, without endlesslycomplex modeling? And once you know, what should you do with thatknowledge? Managing Your Customers as Investments has the answers.You'll learn simple ways to get reliable customer value information--ina form you can use. You'll discover how to use it to measure marketingeffectiveness, generate improvements throughout the entire customerrelationship lifecycle, and improve decision-making. Everyone tells youto manage your business around customers. This book gives you the toolsto do it.

About the Author

About the Authors

SUNIL GUPTA is Meyer Feldberg Professor of Business at the Columbia Business School, Columbia University, New York. He has also taught at UCLA and the Harvard Business School; conducted seminars and consulted with companies worldwide; appeared on CNN, BBC, and PBS; and been quoted in publications, including The New York Times, The Financial Times, and The Washington Post.

Gupta's expertise is in marketing strategy, pricing, and customer management. He has published extensively on these topics. His research papers have won several awards. He serves on the editorial boards of six journals.

He is the cofounder and president of the EX Group, a strategic consulting group that specializes in customer management. He also served as an academic trustee of the Marketing Science Institute. He holds an MBA from Indian Institute of Management and a Ph.D. from Columbia University.

DONALD R. LEHMANN is George E. Warren Professor of Business at the Columbia Business School, Columbia University, New York. His research interests include modeling individual and group decision-making, empirical generalizations and meta-analysis, the introduction and adoption of new products and innovations, and measuring the value of marketing assets such as brands and customers. He has taught courses in marketing, management, and statistics at Columbia and has also taught at Cornell, Dartmouth, New York University, and the University of Pennsylvania.

Lehmann has published in and served on the editorial boards of several journals and was founding editor of Marketing Letters. His books include Market Research and Analysis, Analysis for Marketing Planning, Product Management, and Meta-Analysis in Marketing.

He served as executive director of the Marketing Science Institute and as president of the Association for Consumer Research. He is the recipient of many awards, including the 2000 Paul D. Converse award and the AMA McGraw Hill-Irwin distinguished marketing educator award. He holds an M.S.I.A. and Ph.D. from the Krannert School of Purdue University.

Gupta and Lehmann, along with Joel Steckel, are coauthors of Marketing Research.

© Copyright Pearson Education. All rights reserved.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 224 pages
• Publisher: Wharton School Publishing (January 29, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0131428950
• ISBN-13: 978-0131428959
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.3 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (16 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #201,978 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

47 of 50 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Do It Smarter Book, May 18, 2005

By 

John G. Hilliard (Toronto Canada) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Managing Customers as Investments: The Strategic Value of Customers in the Long Run (Hardcover)

Understanding that a businesses customers are one of it's greatest assets is not a new or novel idea. After all these are the people that pay the bills. But how can you fairly asses what the true value of any one customer is? Is it all based on total revenue, profit margin or market share? Questions that are difficult to answer and not really a black and white issue. This book teaches the readers how to see the link between customer value and firm value. It also does a great job of showing you which aspects of customer management are the most critical. One of the rules they want you to look at is long term relationships and strategies and not just the short term fix.

There were two great aspects of the book that made it one that can easily be used. First the authors made the decision to keep the approaches simple. You did not have to work through some multiple step process with NASU like calculations. The authors theory is that simple and intuitive concept can be implemented by almost all management thus insuring a better adoption rate. The second aspect I felt was valuable was that the book was full of real life examples. It was far easier to see how the process worked when you could relate to the examples provided. Overall I really enjoyed the book. It was informative, had great ideas and is one that can make a difference in any organization.

34 of 36 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Aligning Customer Value and Business Value, July 11, 2005

By 

Craig L. Howe "The Pointed Pundit" (Darien, CT United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Managing Customers as Investments: The Strategic Value of Customers in the Long Run (Hardcover)

Ultimately a business is worth only as much as the value of its customers.

Sunil Gupta, and Donald Lehman, both Columbia Business School Professors of Business, present a practical view of marketing that weaves both its financial and customer aspects.

The concept of lifetime value of a customer is presented in a straightforward way. The information is useful to anyone charged with improving financial accountability and managing ROI.

Although the concept of customer value is not new, the two professors argue it is better to be "vaguely right, than precisely wrong" when getting started. The book shows how to use publicly available information and a simple formula to estimate the lifetime value of a customer for a publicly traded firm.

Unlike the internet age, the two professors show that for most firms, the lifetime value of a customer rarely exceeds 4.5 times his or her annual margin.

By the time you finish this book you will think of customers as assets and be convinced that expenditures directly related to acquiring and maintaining them be treated accordingly.

17 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Making Marketing Matter to Your CEO and CFO, May 30, 2005

By 

Roy A. Young (Beverly Hills, CA (United States)) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Managing Customers as Investments: The Strategic Value of Customers in the Long Run (Hardcover)

The need for a company to be customer-oriented is today a widely accepted idea, not just by marketers but by all executives. By my count, in 2004 alone, there were at least 15 major books published on the importance of managing all organizations with customer focus. But that's easier said than done. Thankfully now, in 2005, a new book can help you close the gap between knowledge and results by using vocabulary, processes and metrics to drive a customer-centric strategy. It should be on the very top of your reading list.

Managing Customers as Investments, by Columbia Business School marketing professors, Sunil Gupta and Donald Lehmann, and published by Wharton School Publishing, is practical and accessible. Rare among academics, the authors, who have published many papers in scholarly journals where complexity and precision are revered, have the ability and wisdom to make their subject simple, clear and useful to marketers in all industries. With examples and case studies, they make it easy to understand how to apply their models to your business. Read it and you will learn invaluable systems to demonstrate to your CEO and CFO that Marketing is the engine of the enterprise.

Gupta and Lehmann argue that if customers are the primary source of cash flow for all organizations, Marketing must be managed in three dimensions: customer acquisition, customer profitability and customer retention. These are the three Cs of Marketing with financial consequences -- not to be confused with the three Cs of market analysis, including customer needs, company (core competencies) and competition, and very different from the traditional four Ps of marketing management, including product, price, promotion and place where the focus is purely on sales or market share. Indeed, customer acquisition, customer profitability and customer retention are significant parts of the CEO and CFO agenda because they are the dimensions that drive the entire business strategy. And, ultimately, managing Marketing with these three Cs as the focus will lead to a position of power in the executive suite. The authors show you how.