Assessing customer centricity: a new framework for manufacturing companies

As a direct result of the changeable market conditions, manufacturing companies are currently shifting their focus from goods to services. Given this process of servitization, customer’s needs and preferences are becoming more and more relevant for companies. In this context, it becomes strategic and essential for companies to adopt a customer centricity approach: a strategy that puts customer needs at the center of all business processes and decisions. This paper aims to develop a new framework that identifies the elements characterizing the customer centricity paradigm in manufacturing companies and supports companies in the evaluation of the customer orientation level. Moreover, by applying the new framework in practice, this paper also discusses how it can helps manufacturing companies in designing a structured customer centricity paradigm and in consistently identifying the actions needed to implement it.