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

authors suggest focusing on four areas to plan for the strategic information systems. These include "using business goals as the starting point for IT investment, looking for opportunities to leverage IT for competitive advantage, managing IT workers efficiently and effectively, and defining enterprise architectures and policies for technology clearly" (p. 182). Furthermore, Reynolds (2002) also emphasizes that CRM technology must follow a customer-centric strategy because only customer-centricity attains the full benefits offered by CRM technology. In addition, Nadkarni (2010) argues that IT implications of implementing a customer-centric business strategy occur when understanding the organization's broader business challenges. Exhibit 1 depicts these. Exhibit 1: Organization's broader business challenges Source: Nadkarni, 2010, Para 5-14. The obstacles to overcome when implementing a customer-centric business strategy extend way beyond IT. However, "the IT organization can take the lead role in ensuring the success of such a strategy - overcoming challenges, reducing implementation times, and preventing organizational frustrations" (Nadkarni, 2010, para 14). d) Customer-Centric Information Systems Liang and Tanniru (2007) present a three- generation framework for customer-centric information systems. "The first-generation systems focused on technology utilization; the second-generation systems were process-oriented built to support general-purpose processes for adaptation through configuration and reusability; while the third depicted customer-centric information systems" (pp. 10-11). Liang and Tanniru emphasize that "Customer value and business competitiveness were the drivers of those systems; making the system development a dynamic process. Moreover, the system development focus is to configure various components of the customer-driven value chain to meet the ever-changing customer value proposition" (p. 11). Capitalizing on the abovementioned, the authors present a framework of four different components for the customer-centric information system that includes customers, processes, products and services, and technologies. Customers are centric with the other three components depicted around the center. VIII. E conomics of C ustomer C entricity The economics of customer-centricity section covers mass customization, customer-centricity sustainability, and economic customer-centricity metrics. a) Mass Customization and Customer Integration Piller and Moeslein (2004) discuss the concept of mass customization and present a value-creation model through mass customization. "Mass customization has emerged in the last decade as a solution for addressing the new market realities while still enabling firms to capture the efficiency advantages of mass-production" (Pine, 1993, Tseng and Jiao, 2001, Piller, 2003, as cited in Piller & Moeslein, 2004). Moreover, "Mass customization is a technology-assisted production process where customers are allowed to modify the traditional mass production process to produce their preferred design and fit. Moreover, it is a collaborative approach where the manufacturer customizes a product based on customer desires identified through a proper dialog" (Fralix, 2001; Gilmore & Pine, 1997; Dissanayake, 2019). The main difference between mass customization and mass production is the high intensity of information (Piller, 2003, cited in Piller & Moeslein, 2004). In a mass customization system, a customer is involved in the configuration or design phases of the products. However, with a variance in the degree of this involvement based on the type of the product. Mass customization is an economic strategy that enables an organization to benefit from the efficiency and deploys a customer-centric strategy to maximize customer value (Piller & Moeslein, 2004). b) Customer Centricity Sustainability Sheth, Sethia, and Srinivas (2011) assert that sustainability, as a business goal, leads to economic, social, and environmental positive impacts. They dissected the economic dimension of sustainability where multiple arguments are present. They argue that the economics aspect relates to one of the known 3Ps: planet, people, and profit representing the conventional economic profit. However, through customer-centricity, organizations may also define a new concept in the economic dimension of sustainability. Adopting customer-centric sustainability (CCS) as a core element results in much greater effectiveness of the Corporate's sustainability agenda. Seth et al. (2011) propose conceptualizing CCS as a metric of performance based on sustainability outcomes that are personally consequential for customers and result from customer- directed business actions. The authors argue that there are three dimensions of CCS: • Environmental; relates to the impact of consumption on the environment's well-being. • Identify and understand each stakeholder's role in the execution of the strategy successfully. • Implement effective communication between stakeholders to avoid loss or misinterpretation of messages throughout the organization's ranks and levels. • Define a consistent data architecture strategy with a clear vision of the organization's strategy and communicated operational objectives. An Assessment of Customer-Centricity Success Factors: Context of the Lebanese Market 8 Global Journal of Management and Business Research Volume XXII Issue II Version I Year 2022 ( )E © 2022 Global Journals