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

and 71.5% stated that their organization has a clearly- defined customer-centric strategy communicated among all functional departments. On the other hand, the findings fit many researchers' findings; Schlesinger and Heskett (1991) stressed both employees' and customers' loyalty. Reichheld (1996) expanded the loyalty business model beyond customers and employees. Panthongpraser (2015) recommended that "organizations have to be aware of their focused efforts to nurture and engage current customers and improve organizational practices implemented to increase loyalty and to transform customers to ambassadors of their brands" (p. 45). Moreover, Galbraith (2002, as cited in Lamberti, 2013) stressed that a common goal of a shared cultural view of the company's role is essential to implementing customer-centered processes. Fralix (2001), Gilmore & Pine (1997), and Dissanayake (2019) emphasized the customer's new role of being a partner in the design process. Finally, MacDonald (2022) asserted the bonding of organizational culture to customers. XIII. C onclusion and R ecommendations a) Conclusion This paper aims to assess and analyze the critical success factors of organizational customer- centricity within the context of the Lebanese market. Overall findings support that many Lebanese companies are attempting to become customer-centric whose representative respondents have supported that among the primary critical success factors assessed are structure, culture, leadership, technology, and human resources were salient. The corresponding hypotheses were all statistically significant though many of the corresponding Pearson's correlation values ranged from 'weak to moderate' as shown in the regression analysis. Nevertheless, the results serve as a revelation for further research work and the highest involvement of Lebanese institutions. Customer-centric companies capitalize on what customers value. And the value customers represent to the organizational bottom line. These organizations' operating models work according to carefully defined and quantified customer segmentation strategies. They tailor their business streams with product development to demand generation to production and scheduling to marketing, sales, customer care, etc., to deliver top value to their best customers for the least cost. The respondent's view on the organization's centricity was surprisingly satisfactory. Results show that 72% of the respondents consider their organizations to be customer-centric versus 28% who view them as product-centric; 81.5% answered that their organizations allow the involvement of the customers in the design of their products and services. Also, 99% of the respondents believe that the functional teams related to direct customer relationships are consolidated effectively, and 94% believe that using technology to analyze customer data in their organization is highly effective. In addition, 95% of the respondents believe that their organization's culture is suitable and effective in supporting customer-centricity. In addition, 86% of the respondents believe that their organizations' customer- centricity is in the mission and vision statements, and 71.5% of the respondents state that there is a clearly defined customer-centric strategy communicated across all departments. The findings are surprising because very few use metrics to measure their customers' retention and loyalty using scientific methodologies. Most possibly, besides the classical customer surveys, managers establish direct contact with their customers and mostly their few preferred ones. Worth mentioning that even though Lebanese organizations pay good attention to their IT support systems and their HR talent, they are more in the 'wishful thinking' stage by having them in the customer-centric context and oriented applications. It is a long, demanding, and continuous work to become - and maintain - a customer-centric organization, but the result is a much more profitable brand. Tested Research Model (Figure 6) Findings suggest the following final research model based on statistically significant hypotheses. An Assessment of Customer-Centricity Success Factors: Context of the Lebanese Market 24 Global Journal of Management and Business Research Volume XXII Issue II Version I Year 2022 ( )E © 2022 Global Journals