The literature shows some recent calls for an end to 'unaccountable' marketing (Rust et al., 2001; Sheth and Sharma, 2001) and the use of customer lifetime value as an appropriate marketing metric (Rust et al., 2001). Some commentators recommend the application of shareholder value measures to the valuation of customer relationships (Uyemara, 1997; Mariotti, 1996). The thesis evaluates the application of shareholder value measures to the valuation of customers. Shareholder value involves both risk and return; therefore, the thesis argues, the risk of the customer or segment has to be identified before that customer's role in creating shareholder value for an organisation can be assessed. In addition, Relationship Marketing suggests that customer relationships have value in ways that are not easy to capture using traditional customer profitability analysis. The thesis explores different methods of valuing relationship benefits. As a result of the literature review, a model of the total value of the customer is developed which defines the Total Value of the Customer as the lifetime economic value of the customer (customer lifetime value adjusted for risk), plus the value of relationship benefits (Referral and Reference Effects, and Learning and Innovation). The model is operationalized using shareholder value measures and then tested in two collaborative research projects. The research finds that managers in the participating companies do not have good information about the lifetime value of their customer relationships. Evidence of changes in strategy as a result of a better understanding of the value of the customer is found. The research contributes to theory and knowledge through defining and calculating the Total Value of the Customer; demonstrating the application of shareholder value measures to the valuation of customers; finding and measuring relationship benefits measuring customer risk; and finding a link between the value of the customer and targeted marketing strategies.

This research undertakes a contingency theory examination of strategy and cost system alignment based on customer retention and customer profitability analysis. Previous research and consultancy advice has promoted the benefits of a firm following a customer retention strategy. They claim that in order to support the strategy a firm should have a customer profitability analysis system in place. Yet often what is prescribed as good practice is not observed in firms. This inconsistency is explained using contingency theory. Initial qualitative evidence was collected from four industry sites to determine whether the above strategy-cost system alignment was present. An analysis of these findings suggested that the customer retention-customer profitability analysis system relationship was contingent on a range of factors. As a result, a contingent theory of this relationship was developed from the four sites, and this theory was then tested in a survey of 862 people from 431 firms. The survey results provide support for the propositions developed from the qualitative evidence. It is likely that firms will follow multiple operational marketing strategies and have cost management systems in place to support those strategies. Although customer retention is a very important operational marketing strategy, a significant number of firms do not have customer profitability analysis systems in place to support the strategy. Many contingent factors were identified. Customer profitability analysis implementation is dependent on industry type; size; the difficulties involved in determining customer costs; whether the organisation has a champion for the system; the relationship between the marketing and accounting functions in a firm; and the available labour resources to facilitate implementation. Further, it is apparent that customer profitability analysis information is not essential to support a customer retention strategy. Customer revenue information can be substituted and the firms are satisfied with the level of management accounting system support for their operational marketing strategies. However, many respondents see the value of customer revenue, customer cost and customer profitability information, providing opportunities for future design of such systems as well as research into their development.

A number of researcher and practitioners have identified a dramatic increase in competition and market transparency as the driving force behind the decline in customer loyalty in the financial services sector (e.g. Caruana, 2002). However, the costs for selling a product to a new customer are much higher than the costs for selling the same product to an existing customer, particularly when the customer is loyal to the company (Duffy, 2003). Due to these facts, strengthening customer relationships is necessary to achieve higher customer equity. Blodgett (2000) claims that the successful implementation of a customer equity strategy involves an organisation’s customer focus, operations, systems, and culture. Companies can offer value to customers through their services and products (added value and innovations), their personnel (service quality), and their processes (speed and quality). When the customer buys financial products and services, he creates customer equity for the company, which is in this thesis presented as company profit. Company profit is the sum of all customer profits and represents the value of each customer in the form of monetary aspects. This thesis aims at investigating if communication, price, process, product and human resource management influence company profit (customer equity) and, thus, whether they are drivers of customer equity (Chapters 5-10). In total, seven dimensions have been investigated. Recent customer equity models of value-based management are examined from the literature and based upon this, the construction of a new conceptual model for value building in competitive markets is proposed (Chapter 4). The framework identifies value propositions such as brand or product leadership, value sources for determining value creation strategies, and finally customer touch points for value delivery. Touch points are referred to as advertising, use of a logo, presence of sales persons, websites, branch outlets etc i.e. the human and physical interactions with customers over their relationship with an organisation. Together with products such touch points are designed to deliver value to customers with the objective of increasing customer equity.

Ao considerar que as empresas de serviços contábeis não prestam somente serviços na área contábil, mas também nas áreas societária, trabalhista e tributária, dentre outras; que clientes de portes semelhantes geram serviços com dificuldades de elaboração diferenciada em razão da forma de tributação, da atividade exercida e de questões de organização interna de cada empresa, entre outros fatores; que muitos dos escritórios contábeis cresceram e hoje são considerados empresas de serviços contábeis e constituem um segmento de grande importância no cenário empresarial brasileiro, faz-se necessário estudos quanto aos custos dos serviços prestados, a fixação do preço de venda destes serviços e a análise da lucratividade de cada cliente. O presente estudo, que tem como objetivo de propor um modelo de mensuração de custos mensais para as empresas de serviços contábeis, com o intuito de viabilizar a análise da lucratividade de cada um de seus clientes. O trabalho parte de uma abordagem administrativa, com enfoque gerencial da empresa de serviços contábeis, identifica custos e despesas, utiliza-se de conceitos de diversos métodos de custeio para direcionar os custos a cada departamento da empresa de serviços contábeis e, consequentemente, a cada cliente usuário dos serviços. Identifica, portanto, os custos, compara com os preços de venda praticados, e analisa, individualmente, a lucratividade de cada cliente da empresa de serviços contábeis. / Considering that accounting services companies do not only provide services in accounting, but also in corporation, labor and taxation, and other fields, considering that clients of similar sizes generate services with special development difficulties due to the way they are taxed, the type of business being carried out, and matters of each company’s internal structure, among other factors, considering that many accounting firms grew and today are considered financial services companies which constitute a segment of great importance in the Brazilian business scenario, studies on the costs of services provided to each client are made necessary as well as fixing the selling price of services and profitability analysis of each client. The present study aims to propose a measurement model of monthly costs for businesses providing accounting services, it intends to facilitate the analysis of the profitability of each client. It comes from an administrative perspective, with a managerial focus on accounting services companies, it identifies costs and expenses and uses the concepts of various defrayment methods to direct the costs to each department of the accounting services company and therefore to each client user of the services. Therefore it identifies the costs, compares them with the sales prices, and analyzes individually the profitability of each client of the accounting services company.

Ao considerar que as empresas de serviços contábeis não prestam somente serviços na área contábil, mas também nas áreas societária, trabalhista e tributária, dentre outras; que clientes de portes semelhantes geram serviços com dificuldades de elaboração diferenciada em razão da forma de tributação, da atividade exercida e de questões de organização interna de cada empresa, entre outros fatores; que muitos dos escritórios contábeis cresceram e hoje são considerados empresas de serviços contábeis e constituem um segmento de grande importância no cenário empresarial brasileiro, faz-se necessário estudos quanto aos custos dos serviços prestados, a fixação do preço de venda destes serviços e a análise da lucratividade de cada cliente. O presente estudo, que tem como objetivo de propor um modelo de mensuração de custos mensais para as empresas de serviços contábeis, com o intuito de viabilizar a análise da lucratividade de cada um de seus clientes. O trabalho parte de uma abordagem administrativa, com enfoque gerencial da empresa de serviços contábeis, identifica custos e despesas, utiliza-se de conceitos de diversos métodos de custeio para direcionar os custos a cada departamento da empresa de serviços contábeis e, consequentemente, a cada cliente usuário dos serviços. Identifica, portanto, os custos, compara com os preços de venda praticados, e analisa, individualmente, a lucratividade de cada cliente da empresa de serviços contábeis. / Considering that accounting services companies do not only provide services in accounting, but also in corporation, labor and taxation, and other fields, considering that clients of similar sizes generate services with special development difficulties due to the way they are taxed, the type of business being carried out, and matters of each company’s internal structure, among other factors, considering that many accounting firms grew and today are considered financial services companies which constitute a segment of great importance in the Brazilian business scenario, studies on the costs of services provided to each client are made necessary as well as fixing the selling price of services and profitability analysis of each client. The present study aims to propose a measurement model of monthly costs for businesses providing accounting services, it intends to facilitate the analysis of the profitability of each client. It comes from an administrative perspective, with a managerial focus on accounting services companies, it identifies costs and expenses and uses the concepts of various defrayment methods to direct the costs to each department of the accounting services company and therefore to each client user of the services. Therefore it identifies the costs, compares them with the sales prices, and analyzes individually the profitability of each client of the accounting services company.

Ao considerar que as empresas de serviços contábeis não prestam somente serviços na área contábil, mas também nas áreas societária, trabalhista e tributária, dentre outras; que clientes de portes semelhantes geram serviços com dificuldades de elaboração diferenciada em razão da forma de tributação, da atividade exercida e de questões de organização interna de cada empresa, entre outros fatores; que muitos dos escritórios contábeis cresceram e hoje são considerados empresas de serviços contábeis e constituem um segmento de grande importância no cenário empresarial brasileiro, faz-se necessário estudos quanto aos custos dos serviços prestados, a fixação do preço de venda destes serviços e a análise da lucratividade de cada cliente. O presente estudo, que tem como objetivo de propor um modelo de mensuração de custos mensais para as empresas de serviços contábeis, com o intuito de viabilizar a análise da lucratividade de cada um de seus clientes. O trabalho parte de uma abordagem administrativa, com enfoque gerencial da empresa de serviços contábeis, identifica custos e despesas, utiliza-se de conceitos de diversos métodos de custeio para direcionar os custos a cada departamento da empresa de serviços contábeis e, consequentemente, a cada cliente usuário dos serviços. Identifica, portanto, os custos, compara com os preços de venda praticados, e analisa, individualmente, a lucratividade de cada cliente da empresa de serviços contábeis. / Considering that accounting services companies do not only provide services in accounting, but also in corporation, labor and taxation, and other fields, considering that clients of similar sizes generate services with special development difficulties due to the way they are taxed, the type of business being carried out, and matters of each company’s internal structure, among other factors, considering that many accounting firms grew and today are considered financial services companies which constitute a segment of great importance in the Brazilian business scenario, studies on the costs of services provided to each client are made necessary as well as fixing the selling price of services and profitability analysis of each client. The present study aims to propose a measurement model of monthly costs for businesses providing accounting services, it intends to facilitate the analysis of the profitability of each client. It comes from an administrative perspective, with a managerial focus on accounting services companies, it identifies costs and expenses and uses the concepts of various defrayment methods to direct the costs to each department of the accounting services company and therefore to each client user of the services. Therefore it identifies the costs, compares them with the sales prices, and analyzes individually the profitability of each client of the accounting services company.

The main goal of this master thesis is to implement a system for performing customer profitability analysis in a consulting company. Implementation of the system is based on concepts that are presented in the theoretical part of this thesis. This thesis also contains discussion about the usability of the activity based costing and of the time driven activity based costing. The theoretical part of this thesis contains an explanation of the customer profitability analysis. This part also presents the activity based costing method and also the time driven activity based costing method. Due to the main focus of this thesis, theoretical part also contains an explanation of specifics of performance management in a consulting company. The practical part of this thesis begins with a description of current conditions in the researched company. This is followed by the implementation of the customer profitability analysis system. This thesis is concluded by performing customer profitability analysis in the researched company.

Understanding of how to manage relationships with customers has become an important topic for both academic and practitioners in recent years. The effectiveness of business can be greatly improved by identifying the drivers of the most profitable customers and using them to target the right customers. In this study we identify exchange characteristics such as amount of money spent per purchase, customer relationship duration with firm, ratio of cross-buying and demographic characteristics such as age and gender as important drivers of the most profitable customers. The results of the study have important implications for academicians in understanding what drives the most profitable customers in noncotractual settings as well as practitioners to help design more effective marketing strategies. Moreover, the results of knowledge discovery about customers by different data mining techniques also contribute to help researchers identifying feasibility of these methods. Powered by TCPDF (www.tcpdf.org)

"Customer Profitability Analysis in the Service Industry" aims to describe the practical application of customer profitability analysis techniques in holding XYZ, which provides ICT services to the hospitality industry. The thesis starts with a theoretical part. It describes several management accounting techniques for measuring customer profitability. The second part of the thesis demonstrates the application of some of these techniques in a real-life environment. Implementing management accounting tools, business processes and changing the accounting data structure are described step by step.

Bakgrund och problem: Kundlönsamhetsberäkningar görs för att företag ska få kunskap om lönsamheten per kund. Informationen utgör sedan beslutsunderlag för styrning mot ökad total kundlönsamhet. För många företag finns det dock faktorer som inte är möjliga eller svåra att inkludera i en kundlönsamhetsberäkning samtidigt som de påverkar den totala kundlönsamheten. Företagen behöver därmed komplettera beräkningarna med dessa för att få en mer rättvisande kundlönsamhetsanalys som möjliggör styrning utifrån företagets helhetsperspektiv. Svårigheten för företagen är därför hur dessa faktorer ska hanteras och värderas samt användas i företagets styrning. Syfte: Syftet med uppsatsen är att skapa förståelse för hur företag genomför en kundlönsamhetsanalys inkluderande de faktorer som används som komplement till de traditionella kundlönsamhetsberäkningarna samt hur företagen styr utifrån dessa. Metod: För denna studie har en kvalitativ forskningsstrategi tillämpats där en fallstudie har använts. För intervjuerna har en semistrukturerad intervju med öppna frågor använts där en intervjuguide har legat till grund för strukturen på intervjun. Slutsats: Studiens resultat visar att företag anpassar och väljer kalkylmetod för kundlönsamhetsberäkning utifrån verksamheten. De värderar sedan de kompletterande faktorerna till stor del genom kunskap och erfarenhet. Kundlönsamhetsanalyserna används som beslutsunderlag för styrande åtgärder främst avseende förbättring av företagets processer, prioritering av resurser samt påverkan av kundernas beteenden i syfte att uppnå optimal kundlönsamhet för företaget. / Background and problem: Customer profitability calculations are needed for companies to obtain knowledge of the profitability of their customers. The information then constitutes the basis for decision-making for the managing to increase total customer profitability. For many companies there exists some factors which are impossible or difficult to include within a customer profitability calculation, however these factors affect the total customer profitability. Therefore companies need to complement the calculations with these to receive a more accurate customer profitability analysis which makes managing towards the company’s comprehensive view possible. The difficultness for the companies is how these factors should be handled, valued and used within the companies managing. Purpose: The purpose with this paper is to create understanding about how companies fulfill a customer profitability analysis that concludes factors which are used as a compliment for the traditional customer profitability calculations. The study also includes how companies manage their organizations based on the customer profitability analysis. Method: A qualitative study with semi structured interview has been used. An interview guide has been the basis for the structure of the interview. Conclusion: When analyzing the empirical material, we found that companies adjust and choose the calculation method for customer profitability calculations based on how the business is structured. They value the complementary factors mostly through knowledge and experience. The customer profitability analysis are used as a basis for decisions regarding managing actions regarding improvements of the companies processes, priorities of resources and the influence by the customers behavior for the purpose to achieve an optimal customer profitability for the companies.