Managing Customers as Investments The Strategic Value of Customers in the Long Run

Acknowledgments

Peter Drucker, one of the most influential management gurus, once said, “Innovation and marketing are the only two valuable activities of a firm. The rest are costs.” However, marketing has come under increasing pressure as executives find it difficult to show a return on marketing spending. It is easy for them to ask for millions of dollars for advertising or for improving customer satisfaction, but it is much harder to show how this investment affects firm profits or shareholder value. This book shows why investment in marketing, and especially customers, is critical by linking it to the market capitalization of the firm, the “gold standard” of success for publicly held companies.

This book had many sources of inspiration. One ...