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How IBM, Intuit, and Rich Products Became More Customer-Centric

Harvard Business Review

We have shifted from a competitive landscape in which companies are more exclusively focused on external forces affecting their industries and sectors, to one that has become significantly more customer-centric. Consider the battle waged by IBM’s software development teams between competing methods for getting closer to customers.

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Can Anyone Stop Amazon from Winning the Industrial Internet?

Harvard Business Review

An aircraft engine is unlikely to become a purely digital product any time soon! We don’t expect Amazon or Microsoft or IBM to design, make, and market agricultural tractors, aircraft engines, or MR scanners. Companies like Rolls Royce design and manufacture jet engines. Customer intimacy. Not, really.

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Understanding Customers Is Everyone's Job

Harvard Business Review

The biggest changes, not surprisingly, are in the marketing function, itself — the source of these new, more detailed customer insights. In a recent article , Sheridan described how he answered customers'' most common questions about fiberglass pools regarding prices, problems, and competitors.