Global Journal of Management and Business Research, E: Marketing, Volume 22 Issue 2

• Fit-For-Purpose business processes; wisely flow the most basic and stable products and services through the most efficient, least expensive business streams. Diverting more complicated and less predictable elements of offerings to more customized streams is recommended to isolate complexity within the system and minimize costs). • Collective, cross-functional effort; tailoring solutions to customers' ever-changing needs requires cooperation across functions, product/service lines, and company boundaries. k) The Seven Practices of Customer-Centric Organizations A provider of customer experience and engagement software 'People Metrics' (2013) identified seven practices of customer-centric organizations. These are: making customers mission-central, seeking highly loyal customers, empowering customers' feedback, enriching employees' knowledge sharing to improve customers' experience, providing all necessary resources to employees' customers' problem solving, sharing collected customers' feedback with employees, and recognizing employees when they offer good service to customers. These practices are familiar among many models discussed earlier in this paper. l) Customer-Centricity Attributes and Behaviors Marshak (2013) presents the attributes and behaviors that define true customer-centricity as follows: • Organizational commitment to customer success • Full engagement with customers • Top-down management customer commitment • Internalizing a culture of customer-centricity • Recognizing the customer along the corporate business lines • Designing customer-centric processes and policies • Measuring customers’ related transactions • Encouraging innovation for customers Marshak emphasizes other practices like "customer experience." A truly customer-centric organization will work to understand what its end customers are trying to do and help them get that done with ease, grace, and a positive experience. VI. I nternal O rganizational F actors and C ustomer C entricity Internal organizational factors like culture and structure play an important role in shaping the customer-centricity of an organization. Researchers in this section summarizes the findings of relevant literature on the impact of organizational culture and structure in determining the success of a customer- centric organization. a) Organizational Culture and Customer Centricity Creating a customer-centric culture Blacharski (2006) presents different actions an organization should take to ensure a wide-accepted customer-centric culture. (1) Organizational identity is embedded in every employee in the organization. A fact observed in the process of creation of the product/service with the customer in mind. (2) Organizational mission statement must embed the commitment, the desire to deliver the best value, and the delivery of the best customer experience. The mission statement should lead to the value proposition of the organization shared among all employees. This value statement should envisage how the organization wants its image in consumers' minds. Blacharski (2006) asserts that the main steps in creating a customer- centric culture are as follows: Knowing customers, hiring appropriate talent, training for customer service, activating standards and record metrics, practicing positive reinforcement techniques, starting from the top (top management commitment), and keeping employees happy. b) Organizational Culture and Customer Centricity Jordheim (2014) discusses the development of a customer-centric culture that enables the organization to live up to customer expectations. Hiring staff that mirrors customer-centric culture is essential in determining the success of customer-centric strategies. Employees are the company's heart with all the values, norms, and beliefs that the company is trying to adopt as a cultural image. c) Organizational Structure and Customer Centricity Different structures adopted by the organization may lead to the success or failure of the customer- centric strategy adopted by this organization. d) Reinforcing customer-centricity through the structure Reesink (2014) discusses the importance of organizational structure as a customer-centricity determinant factor. The researcher mentions that perceiving customer-centricity as an organization's goal or strategy is achieved by aligning the organizational structure to them. An organizational structure that enables a mindset that crosses different functional areas is essential to creating the highest customer value. Jones, 2010, as cited in Reesink (2014) contends that "the differentiation of subunits based on customer segments allows such a cross-functional mindset since it will align functional skills and competencies with the needs of the customer segment" (p. 14). Moreover, Reesink states that while customer-centricity implies the maximization of value creation for the customer, each employee should work on reaching this maximum value by defining the Key Performance Indicator (KPI) structure. Total integration of subunits and all front-end activities reinforce customer-centricity by aligning all value creation activities. "An integration role coordinates the activities of two or more functions or subunits, An Assessment of Customer-Centricity Success Factors: Context of the Lebanese Market 6 Global Journal of Management and Business Research Volume XXII Issue II Version I Year 2022 ( )E © 2022 Global Journals