Q: What underlying technology best describes your organization's current IT capability to capture customer data updates (i.e., new information about preferences and needs)?
An encouraging 19% of respondents to our survey on customer-managed data are involving customers directly in their customer updates processes through Web services. Contributor Kathryn Brohman offered this insight for these organizations: "It is clear that co-production is innovative and may represent a whole new frontier for competitive advantage in customer service; however, it is important to note that value co-creation is a double-edged sword. If not managed carefully, customer expectations may become unrealistic and/or value propositions between competitors may become so similar that firms end up competing their value away to their customers."
* Excerpted from "The Key to Getting to Your Customers is to Get Beyond Yourself" (
), Cutter Benchmark Review, Vol. 11, No. 4