{"product_id":"building-a-chain-of-customers","title":"Building a Chain of Customers","description":"Richard Schonberger, in his fourth and most important book yet, introduces a powerful new concept: that the many links between and within the four main business functions -- design, operations, accounting, and marketing -- form a continuous \"chain of customers\" that extends to those who buy the product or service. \u003ci\u003eEveryone\u003c\/i\u003e has a customer -- the next department, office, shop, or person -- at the hundreds of pioneering companies Schonberger has studied throughout the world.\n\u003cp\u003e\nSchonberger demonstrates the universality of customer wants: Both the next and final customers want ever better quality, quicker response, greater flexibility, and lower cost. This condition provides a common strategy and calls for common methods to be used across the organization. Every employee is a data gatherer and analyst, unearthing more and better ways to provide for these customers' wants -- before the competition does so.\n\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\nAs the new thinking and methods permeate every comer of the firm, they topple departmental walls and adjust gang-like mind-sets and \"them-versus-us\" attitudes. Performance is no longer measured by internal costs but by improvement as seen by the next customer; direct control of causes generally replaces after-the-fact control of costs. Design is brought out of isolation. Finally, with the rest of the firm reoriented toward customer service, marketing escapes from a \"negative\" mode -- covering up for failures -- to a positive one -- crowing about the firm's competence and ability to improve.\n\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\nWith the close attention to detail for which he has become famous, Schonberger constructs a blueprint for unifying corporate functions, brilliantly describing the new microcosms that will make up the company of the 1990s -- focused teams of multi-skilled, involved employees arranged according to the way the work flows or the service is provided -- that compose the chain of customers. Aetna, for example, is organizing customer-focused teams that cut across underwritin\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Simon \u0026 Schuster","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":52666584826223,"sku":"9781416573302","price":151.39,"currency_code":"BRL","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0921\/9384\/9711\/files\/1416573305.jpg?v=1770921770","url":"https:\/\/internacional.umlivro.com.br\/products\/building-a-chain-of-customers","provider":"UmLivro Internacional","version":"1.0","type":"link"}