Globally, trade and industry has shifted its focus from the traditional service delivery approaches to various alternative practices to be more successful, cost efficient, customer orientated, flexible and innovative. This shift in focus has lead to organisations applying a customer centric approach in their business. In order to understand customer centricity, it is necessary to be familiar with the term customer service. Customer service is the offering of services to customers before, during and after a purchase. It is a series of activities designed to enhance the level of customer satisfaction, i.e. the feeling that a product or service has met the customer’s expectations. Although it seems to be difficult to create and maintain a positive service culture, the implementation and upkeep of service excellence hold numerous advantages for organisations in both the short and the long term. Excellent customer service leads to an increase in profits as well as assist organisations in achieving a competitive advantage. Organisations with a customer centric approach can expect to experience a 30% higher return on investment on their marketing efforts compared to their peers not embracing customer centricity. Moreover, exceptional customer service will lead to customer satisfaction, which in turn, may well lead to customer loyalty which is crucial in the current volatile economic market. Recent economic instability triggered financial uncertainty in trade and industry. This causes difficulties for organisations to gain a competitive advantage and predict consumer behaviour. The organisations that will survive and outlive these uncertain circumstances will be those that maintain a customer centric focus. A customer centric focus implies that organisations place their customers first by concentrating on their needs and behaviours. These organisations will also attempt to eliminate internal factors that constrain service offerings to customers. Furthermore, customer centricity includes the alignment of resources of the organisation to successfully respond to the ever-changing needs of the customer, while building mutually profitable relationships. The main difference between customer service and customer centricity appears to relate to meaningful changes that customer centric organisations make in addressing their customers’ expectations and providing reciprocal support. Customer centricity seems to take customer service thus a step further with regards to service delivery. The healthcare environment forms an important part of trade and industry and economic instability also affects this sphere. In this study, the focus filters to the healthcare industry in South Africa and the role and importance of a customer centric approach to doctors. The South African healthcare environment consists of two sectors, namely large public (managed by government) and smaller, higher quality private healthcare. The South African healthcare system is unique to those of other countries as it is dynamic and multifaceted. The legislative framework within the healthcare system gives South African citizens the right to access healthcare services. Due to a skewed financing system in healthcare, this framework has a major impact on both the public and private sectors. The private healthcare industry in South Africa has grown dramatically with the number of beds doubling between 1988 and 1993. This was mainly due to the international trends toward privatisation and advanced by government's policies for privatisation. This resulted in the migration of doctors from public service to private practices. Specialists play an integral part in providing healthcare services. The private hospital industry provides admitting and treating facilities where doctors prescribe the care that hospitals should deliver to patients. This interplay between private hospitals and specialists emphasises that specialists are important customers of private hospitals. The importance of obtaining and retaining doctors is also highlighted in the vision and mission of the top three private hospital groups in South Africa, namely Mediclinic, Netcare and Life Healthcare. Many challenges exist to grow and maintain patient volumes for the private hospital sector. One thereof is to establish doctor (and their practices') support by building an optimum mix of loyal specialist and general practitioner (GP) networks for the hospital. The management and nurturing of relationships with doctors through these networks could lead to a competitive advantage for private hospitals. A study was therefore conducted to gain insight as to how specialists define customer centricity as well as their expectations of private hospitals when applying a customer centric approach towards doctors. The research was of qualitative nature. An experimental research design was applied and included 11 participants. Semi-structured interviews with specialists from one of the top three private hospital groups were conducted in order to gather relevant data. The interviews were transcribed and coded. Results were analysed and interpreted via thorough content analysis. Participants highlighted the following elements as important when defining customer centricity: customer focus, satisfaction, facilities and resources, accessibility, safety and cost effectiveness. In addition, participants confirmed that the following aspects marked their expectancies of a customer centric organisation: quality patient care and services, facilities and resources, effective communication, support and cooperation, provision of sufficient and well trained staff, mutual financial gains, appreciation, resolving of problems, involvement in decision making and respect. Conclusions and recommendations pertaining to future research were also provided. / MBA, North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2014

Globally, trade and industry has shifted its focus from the traditional service delivery approaches to various alternative practices to be more successful, cost efficient, customer orientated, flexible and innovative. This shift in focus has lead to organisations applying a customer centric approach in their business. In order to understand customer centricity, it is necessary to be familiar with the term customer service. Customer service is the offering of services to customers before, during and after a purchase. It is a series of activities designed to enhance the level of customer satisfaction, i.e. the feeling that a product or service has met the customer’s expectations. Although it seems to be difficult to create and maintain a positive service culture, the implementation and upkeep of service excellence hold numerous advantages for organisations in both the short and the long term. Excellent customer service leads to an increase in profits as well as assist organisations in achieving a competitive advantage. Organisations with a customer centric approach can expect to experience a 30% higher return on investment on their marketing efforts compared to their peers not embracing customer centricity. Moreover, exceptional customer service will lead to customer satisfaction, which in turn, may well lead to customer loyalty which is crucial in the current volatile economic market. Recent economic instability triggered financial uncertainty in trade and industry. This causes difficulties for organisations to gain a competitive advantage and predict consumer behaviour. The organisations that will survive and outlive these uncertain circumstances will be those that maintain a customer centric focus. A customer centric focus implies that organisations place their customers first by concentrating on their needs and behaviours. These organisations will also attempt to eliminate internal factors that constrain service offerings to customers. Furthermore, customer centricity includes the alignment of resources of the organisation to successfully respond to the ever-changing needs of the customer, while building mutually profitable relationships. The main difference between customer service and customer centricity appears to relate to meaningful changes that customer centric organisations make in addressing their customers’ expectations and providing reciprocal support. Customer centricity seems to take customer service thus a step further with regards to service delivery. The healthcare environment forms an important part of trade and industry and economic instability also affects this sphere. In this study, the focus filters to the healthcare industry in South Africa and the role and importance of a customer centric approach to doctors. The South African healthcare environment consists of two sectors, namely large public (managed by government) and smaller, higher quality private healthcare. The South African healthcare system is unique to those of other countries as it is dynamic and multifaceted. The legislative framework within the healthcare system gives South African citizens the right to access healthcare services. Due to a skewed financing system in healthcare, this framework has a major impact on both the public and private sectors. The private healthcare industry in South Africa has grown dramatically with the number of beds doubling between 1988 and 1993. This was mainly due to the international trends toward privatisation and advanced by government's policies for privatisation. This resulted in the migration of doctors from public service to private practices. Specialists play an integral part in providing healthcare services. The private hospital industry provides admitting and treating facilities where doctors prescribe the care that hospitals should deliver to patients. This interplay between private hospitals and specialists emphasises that specialists are important customers of private hospitals. The importance of obtaining and retaining doctors is also highlighted in the vision and mission of the top three private hospital groups in South Africa, namely Mediclinic, Netcare and Life Healthcare. Many challenges exist to grow and maintain patient volumes for the private hospital sector. One thereof is to establish doctor (and their practices') support by building an optimum mix of loyal specialist and general practitioner (GP) networks for the hospital. The management and nurturing of relationships with doctors through these networks could lead to a competitive advantage for private hospitals. A study was therefore conducted to gain insight as to how specialists define customer centricity as well as their expectations of private hospitals when applying a customer centric approach towards doctors. The research was of qualitative nature. An experimental research design was applied and included 11 participants. Semi-structured interviews with specialists from one of the top three private hospital groups were conducted in order to gather relevant data. The interviews were transcribed and coded. Results were analysed and interpreted via thorough content analysis. Participants highlighted the following elements as important when defining customer centricity: customer focus, satisfaction, facilities and resources, accessibility, safety and cost effectiveness. In addition, participants confirmed that the following aspects marked their expectancies of a customer centric organisation: quality patient care and services, facilities and resources, effective communication, support and cooperation, provision of sufficient and well trained staff, mutual financial gains, appreciation, resolving of problems, involvement in decision making and respect. Conclusions and recommendations pertaining to future research were also provided. / MBA, North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2014

Banking through insufficiently coordinated and non-integrated channels (Multi-Channel) is slowly being discarded. With Omni-Channel banking, where channels are integrated and data and information are shared across cross channels, customers are in control of the channels they wish to use. Factors influencing the organisational decision to transition from Multi-Channel to Omni-Channel hasn't been fully explored. Is this decision responding to internal factors like efficiency improvements, or is it driven by external factors like customer demands, trying to enhance customer experience, gaining competitive advantage over the competitors, expanding the business by introducing new business models, or trying to gain access to smart technologies for financial benefit? This dissertation presents research findings into the investigation of factors that influence the organisational decision to transition from Multi-Channel to Omni-Channel banking. A positivist case study with inductive reasoning was adopted. Qualitative data was collected from a single organisation through interviews together with observations of the strategy documents between January 2019 and April 2019. An initial conceptual model was derived from the literature review to guide data collection, after which thematic analysis was used to analyse the data and develop an emergent theory. The key findings from the research study are that a customer centric approach informs the decision to transition. The customer is at the centre of the omni-channel strategy: that is through an enhanced customer experience or timeously responding to customer demands. Other factors are either enabling this strategy, like technological innovations, and efficiency improvements or are the outcome of the strategy like customer satisfaction, revenue or cost optimisation, and competitive advantage. The key implications are that organisations must pay more attention to the customer journey and ensure that they advance in the Customer Experience Capability Maturity Model. Most successful business transitions to the Omni-Channel strategy require a transformation in organizational culture, operations and processes, and the underlying technologies.

No description available.

The manufacturing domain has been experiencing several revolutions over the years that have been shaping not only the design and management of processes but also their core drivers and value propositions. Industry 4.0 unleashes many enabling technologies such as the Internet of Things sensors and machine learning algorithms to boost industries’ productivity through data-driven process monitoring, rather than relying on operation manager experience. However, this fourth revolution does not set as strategic goals sustainability drivers (e.g., social and environmental) triggered by external forces that undermine modern societies. European policymakers address this structural limitation by defining the Industry 5.0 paradigm focused on human-centric and sustainable value creations. In this fast-paced landscape, this doctoral thesis targets the limitations of Industry 4.0 related contributions and defines three research questions to demonstrate the competitive advantages in designing cyber-physical systems to monitor the efficiency and sustainability of human-centric manufacturing environments. The human-centricity is an important feature of this work because, despite the rise of automation, workers represent a strategic and fragile resource in industrial plants. Therefore, Internet of Things technologies are leveraged to achieve a digital representation of workers. The acquired measurements are fed into computational algorithms to appreciate data-driven managerial insights based on the returned Key Performance and Risk indicators. The contributions of this thesis can be conceptually divided into two separate streams. The first demonstrates the relevance of enhancing the operational visibility of in-plant operations by exploiting Real Time Locating Systems acquisition layers. Although this technology indoor locates whichever (manufacturing) entity and asset in a defined coverage area, the returned workers’ positions fail to evaluate systems’ performances and sustainability. For this purpose, density-based machine learning algorithms and neural networks are introduced and validated to embed operational metrics into Decision Support Systems. Multidimensional managerial insights prove the consistency of this methodology in three different manufacturing environments. Considering production settings, managers appreciate the uptimes of workers and resource utilizations while evaluating the layout configurations and the related efficiency in manual material handling activities. This twofold level of analysis enables to eventually increase in-plant productivity while optimizing workers’ efforts in replenishment routes. The logistic investigation offers similar takes by monitoring the Overall Equipment Effectivness of manual forklifts and the distribution of picking/depositing activities in storage areas. Potential inefficiencies provide valid input to optimize the performances while reducing the energy consumption of logistics vehicles. The second stream focuses on workers’ physical resilience during task executions. To achieve this purpose, ergonomic indices are largely adopted to mitigate work-related musculoskeletal disorders in the workforce. The European Assembly Worksheet screening tool is the most complete one focusing on several parameters ranging from working postures to exterted forces. The developed cyber-physical system mirrors in digital spaces workers’ operations through a multi-device acquisition layer. While a four-channel surface ElectroMyoGraphy and a network of markerless cameras acquire muscular contractions in upper limbs and body joints, a radio-frequency-based smart glove detects process interactions such as tool usages and component pickings and thus segments production activities. These digital measurements are fed into computational algorithms to automate the mentioned ergonomic assessment. The experimental campaign validates the proposed cyber-physical systems and draws several managerial insights. For instance, strong bending postures may highlight a poor workplace design suggesting the need of self-adjustable workstations to accommodate a diverse workforce. At the same time, worrisome exerted forces could require line rebalancing to fairly redistribute muscular activity rates among operators. In summary, this thesis represents a significant advancement in digital manufacturing, offering ready-to-deploy systems while outlining future research opportunities and applications.

The main aim of the study was to determine which measurement tool, existing or adapted, would be able to determine the levels of customer centricity within the sales channels of a specific organisation, operating in the South African financial industry. A literary study showed that in order to determine the levels of customer centricity, customer experience should be measured. Six questionnaires were administered, namely, EXQ, NPS, CES, Customer satisfaction, Word-of-Mouth and Behavioural loyalty intention. The data showed a statistical significance and a positive relationship between all the constructs within all the questionnaires except with that of CES. / MBA, North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2014

The main aim of the study was to determine which measurement tool, existing or adapted, would be able to determine the levels of customer centricity within the sales channels of a specific organisation, operating in the South African financial industry. A literary study showed that in order to determine the levels of customer centricity, customer experience should be measured. Six questionnaires were administered, namely, EXQ, NPS, CES, Customer satisfaction, Word-of-Mouth and Behavioural loyalty intention. The data showed a statistical significance and a positive relationship between all the constructs within all the questionnaires except with that of CES. / MBA, North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2014

Submitted by Marlene Santos (marlene.bc.ufg@gmail.com) on 2014-11-28T17:56:33Z No. of bitstreams: 2 Dissertação - Luana Silva Borges - 2013.pdf: 1536324 bytes, checksum: 105913bf6578238952077c292b0ff492 (MD5) license_rdf: 23148 bytes, checksum: 9da0b6dfac957114c6a7714714b86306 (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Luciana Ferreira (lucgeral@gmail.com) on 2014-12-04T14:10:45Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 2 Dissertação - Luana Silva Borges - 2013.pdf: 1536324 bytes, checksum: 105913bf6578238952077c292b0ff492 (MD5) license_rdf: 23148 bytes, checksum: 9da0b6dfac957114c6a7714714b86306 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2014-12-04T14:10:45Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 2 Dissertação - Luana Silva Borges - 2013.pdf: 1536324 bytes, checksum: 105913bf6578238952077c292b0ff492 (MD5) license_rdf: 23148 bytes, checksum: 9da0b6dfac957114c6a7714714b86306 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2013-10-17 / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior - CAPES / The critical fortune of Clarice Lispector treated, in much, female characters who struggle against the anguish and the nullification within wealthy families. Are women who live in bourgeois contexts, facing daily exhaustive dedication to others: canceled amid children, husbands, the society events that pressure them. However, if the studies favored, greatly, the transgressors streams of consciousness of these protagonists, there is a hue less discussed by critics. It regards the female profiles subjectified in contexts economically peripheral. Here, we studied two of these productions, seeking to understand how Lucrécia Neves, in A cidade sitiada, novel, 1949, and Macabéa in A hora da estrela, novel, 1977, are subjectified in these contexts of cancellation and decentering. We note that, in writing about female characters doubly canceled – because women in a patriarchal society, because the poor in a capitalist society – Lispector uses at least one psychological ceaseless flow, the inner monologues, that consecrated her. The author cares, instead, to the externalization of the self, which meddles into space and is absorbed by the objects. Front of women on the fringes, beings pressured by excentricities, because they do not occupy economic or patriarchal centers, the writer chooses not to narrate them in deep self-reflection. Here we see the critical sagacity of Clarice. She outlines her poor heroines, ironically, through their voices that barely exceed the hardness of objects. These voices are coming out failed when trying to transcend reality, are voices that can barely hold an articulated language. However, when entering the bodies of Lucrécia Neves and Macabéa in the body-text, Lispector dismantles, by her irony and sharpened metaphor, the joints of power installed by patriarchy, destabilizing essentialized gender stereotypes. / A fortuna crítica de Clarice Lispector tratou, em muito, de personagens femininas que se debatem ante a angústia e a anulação no seio de famílias abastadas. São mulheres que vivem em contextos burgueses, enfrentando exaustivos cotidianos de dedicação a outrem: anuladas em meio a filhos, a maridos, a eventos da sociedade que as pressionam. Entretanto, se os estudos privilegiaram, sobremaneira, os fluxos de consciência transgressores destas protagonistas, há um matiz menos abordado pela crítica. Ele diz respeito aos perfis femininos subjetivados em contextos economicamente periféricos. Aqui, estudamos duas dessas produções, buscando entender como Lucrécia Neves, em A cidade sitiada, romance de 1949, e Macabéa, em A hora da estrela, novela de 1977, são subjetivadas nesses contextos de anulação e des-centramento. Constatamos que, ao escrever sobre personagens femininas duplamente anuladas – porque mulheres em uma sociedade patriarcal; porque pobres em uma sociedade capitalista –, Lispector utiliza menos um fluir psicológico incessante, os monólogos interiores que tanto a consagraram. A escritora zela, ao contrário, pela exteriorização do eu dessas personagens, que se imiscui completamente ao espaço e é absorvido pelos objetos. Diante de mulheres à margem, seres pressionados devido a suas excentricidades, pois não ocupam os centros econômicos ou patriarcais, a escritora opta por não narrá-las em autorreflexões profundas. Vemos aí a sagacidade crítica de Clarice. Ela contorna suas heroínas pobres, ironicamente, por meio de suas vozes que mal conseguem ultrapassar a dureza dos objetos. São vozes que saem falidas quando tentam transcender a realidade concreta. São vozes que mal conseguem se apoderar de uma linguagem articulada. Todavia, ao inserir os corpos de Lucrécia Neves e de Macabéa no corpo-texto, Lispector desmantela, pela ironia e por sua metáfora afiada, as articulações de poder instaladas pelo patriarcado, desestabilizando os estereótipos essencializados de gênero.

The customer takes over the center stage of tomorrow’s economy. In the wake of customer-centric service industries, traditional intermediaries are becoming increasingly obsolete and are substituted by self-services. Additionally, because of the on-going digitalization, e-services provide various alternatives to the customer. Thus, self-directed customers must overlook and manage an increasingly complex network of services and providers themselves. Technology is a central factor in this context. On the one hand, it is the leading cause of the current challenges whereby, on the contrary, it is the key to solving them. This work proposes the concept of Customer-centric Service Management (CSM). It is an interdisciplinary approach to adopt the service composition process from the field of business and IT to the particularities of consumers. Combining modular services to individualized and valuable service bundles is its objective. Making this type of interaction accessible for consumers requires a substantial reduction of complexity in the front end. The key to achieving this is by taking an outside-in perspective. This means understanding the decision process of the customer and speaking his language in a field that has been dominated by formal description standards and product parameters for a long time. This work hypothesizes that a paradigm-shift enables consumer-driven service com-position. Thus, the concept of customer-centricity is applied to service management. By letting the consumer describe himself, respectively his distinct needs and requirements, a better customer value is achieved than by traditional product-centric approaches. Unlike existing product-centric configuration tools, customer-centric configurators do not elicit product parameters. Instead, they rely on a structured description of customers’ intentions and values captured in a domain specific customer model. Consequently, the concept applies to a more abstract level of service categories instead of specific product instances. This refers to the pre-purchase phase of the consumer journey – a phase that is widely neglected by academia and practice yet. This work analyzes the concept of CSM on a technical, process-related, and strategic level. Three elements are identified as the core of CSM: the customer model, the service model, and the composition logic. Each item is elaborated in detail at the example of financial services. The concept of CSM facilitates current knowledge from different fields of research and finally implements them into a prototype. This demonstrator is the basis for a large field experiment to answer two questions: in the first place, does customer-centric service composition provide higher customer value regarding perceived complexity, solution utility and process utility? Moreover, secondly, does a reduced complexity, in respect of the amount of information that needs to be handled, with-out changing the configuration paradigm, have a greater impact on customer value? Empirical validation shows that the customer-centric approach has significant ad-vantages over the product-centric one. It offers higher customer value with respect to perceived complexity, perceived solution utility and perceived user experience. This proves the high potential of this concept. The findings of this thesis form the basis of a new form of customer interaction and enable new business models.:1 Introduction 1.1 Initial Situation and Problem 1.2 Contribution and Research Question 1.3 Research Approach 1.4 Thesis Structure 2 Foundations 2.1 Services 2.2 Complexity 2.3 Individualization 2.4 Service Management 3 Conceptualization of Customer-centric Service Management 3.1 Customer-centric Service Management 3.2 Customer Model 3.3 Service Model 3.4 Service Composition Logic 4 Empirical Validation 4.1 Objectives 4.2 Conceptualization 4.3 Prototype 4.4 Experiment Design and Empirical Testing 4.5 Data Analysis and Results 5 Results, Evaluation and Outlook 5.1 Summary and Results 5.2 Customer-centric Service Management as a Business-Model – Practical Startup Experiences 5.3 Outlook and Impact of CSM 5.4 Limitations and Need for Future Research 6 References Curriculum Vitae Bibliographic Data

The research of this study was conducted at Malmö Hospital in collaborationwith Region Skåne. In this paper various methodologies from interactiondesign are used to explore how patient participation in hospital can be aidedand improved. It investigates what aspects of motivational design can bebeneficial to healthcare. The literature used in this study analyses the currentwork values of Malmö Hospital and how it relates to motivational and servicedesign. The study presents design findings based on a service mapping of thehospital along with an evaluation of the current working conditions. Finally,a concept is presented designed to enhance communication between patients and caregivers by visualizing patient water balance.