Customer Management Around the World
Jul 20,2008 00:00 by admin

Customer Management Around the World

Overview

Michael Starkey, Neil Woodcock, Merlin Stone and Sarah Boussofiane

This chapter gives the result of our studies using our research tool, CMAT-R, in a number of countries. Table 3.1 shows the inter-country comparison of approximately 250 CMAT-R studies carried out in Europe (including Switzerland, Austria, UK, Germany), North America and Asia Pacific. Additional studies are already under way which will continue to supplement and maintain the currency of this data. These are summarized in the Introduction to the book. Two of them (US and Netherlands) are covered in Chapters 13 and 14, while the early results of the Japanese study are discussed at the end of this chapter.

Table 3.1: CMAT-R model section scores by country, all industry sectors. Ranking, actual % performance and relative performance against European average
 

Switzerland

Austria

UK

Germany

Euro-Avg.

N. America

AsiaPacific

People & Organization

1=

71%

+4%

1

67%

=

1

62%

-5%

1=

63%

-4%

1

67%

=

3

46%

-21%

5

38%

-29%

Proposition

1=

71%

+6%

2

65%

=

3

57%

-8%

1=

63%

-2%

2

65%

=

7

37%

-28%

7

35%

-30%

Measurement

3

67%

+8%

3

62%

+3%

4

55%

-4%

3

54%

-5%

3

59%

=

1

50%

-9%

4

45%

-14%

Customer Management Activity

4

65%

+10%

5=

56%

+1%

5

53%

-2%

5=

49%

-6%

5

55%

=

5

41%

-14%

6

42%

-13%

Information & Technology

5

63%

+8%

5=

56%

1%

2

63%+8%

7

47%

-8%

4

55%

=

4

43%

-12%

1

59%

+4%

Analysis & Planning

6

61%

+7%

4

59%

+5%

7

50%

-4%

5=

49%

-5%

6

54%

=

2

48%

-6%

3

48%

-6%

Process

7

59%

+6%

7

55%

+2%

8

45%

-8%

4

51%

-2%

7

53%

=

6

39%

-14%

2

51%

-2%

Customer Experience

8

43%

-2%

8

51%

+6%

6

51%+6%

8

42%

-3%

8

45%

=

8

36%

-9%

8

25%

-20%

Overall

1

63%

+6%

2

59%

+2%

4

54%

-3%

5

52%

-5%

3

57%

=

=6

44%

-13%

=6

44%

-13%

In this table, each cell has three entries. The first entry is the rank order of the factor within country. For example, in the top left cell the figure is 1. This means that in the Swiss study, companies on average scored better on people factors than on other factors. In the last row, this number takes a different meaning. It is the ranking of the country overall average versus those of other countries. In this case, the 1 in the left hand cell means that Switzerland scores highest. The second figure (per cent) is the actual average score achieved. The third figure is the score relative to the European average. Where the score is the same, there is an = sign. It is of course = for all European scores.

Table 3.1 shows that Switzerland is the clear leader with an overall score of 63 per cent, followed by Austria, the UK and Germany. North America and Asia Pacific both trail with a score of 44 per cent.

People and Organization (which our earlier studies [1] show a high correlation with business performance) is ranked first everywhere except North America and Asia Pacific. This is encouraging, as it shows that companies are generally not making the mistake of over-investing in technology before dealing with the people issues. North America, by contrast, seems to be very data driven, with a relatively strong performance in the areas of Analysis and Planning and Measurement. However, in the home of marketing we would have expected a much stronger score for the proposition. Perhaps in North America companies are taking for granted that a strong product proposition necessarily translates into a strong customer proposition. Not so!