Christoph Senn
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Senn
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Christoph
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  • Publication
    Customer-Centric Leadership : How to Manage Strategic Customers as Assets in B2B Markets
    (University of California, 2013-05-14)
    Senn, Christoph
    ;
    Thoma, Axel Michael
    ;
    Yip, George S.
    In this age of tough, global competition, companies in business-to-business markets need to rethink the way they manage their customer portfolio and interact with their customers. Customer managers with mainly sales- or relationship-oriented roles cannot leverage their business relationships with customers who seek co-creation. For such co-creation relationships, companies need to install network-oriented managers who systematically create value and reduce risk together with the customer. This article distinguishes three customer asset management perspectives (i.e., sales, relationship, and network) that may be employed by customer managers at the supplier-customer interface. Following an explication of the evolving network perspective, it describes how firms can nurture the network perspective and the corresponding customer manager role in terms of mindset, context, and competence.
    Type: journal article
    Journal: California Management Review
    Volume: 55
    Issue: 03
    DOI: 10.1525/cmr.2013.55.3.27
    URI: https://www.alexandria.unisg.ch/handle/20.500.14171/89308
    Scopus© Citations 23
  • Publication
    Managers@Work: Leveraging Synergies Between R&D and Key Account Management to Drive Value Creation
    (Industrial Research Institute, Inc, 2012-05-01)
    Wiessmeier, Georg F.L.
    ;
    Thoma, Axel Michael
    ;
    Senn, Christoph
    Customer integration into the innovation process, including the fuzzy front end, is increasingly being adopted by firms in search of new innovation and value-creation opportunities. Through a case study of Altana, a specialty chemicals company with worldwide R&D and sales operations, we find that a closer collaboration between R&D and key account management (KAM) unlocks synergies and value creation potential while avoiding the negative side effects of customer integration. Specifically, we describe the motivation for leveraging synergies between R&D and KAM, the location of potential synergies in the innovation process, and ways to foster meaningful alignment and engagement. Following an explanation of observed outcomes of the collaboration, we derive managerial implications.
    Type: journal article
    Journal: Research-Technology Management
    Volume: 55
    Issue: 3
    DOI: 10.5437/08956308X5503020
    URI: https://www.alexandria.unisg.ch/handle/20.500.14171/91704
    Scopus© Citations 13
  • Publication
    Type: conference paper
    URI: https://www.alexandria.unisg.ch/handle/20.500.14171/91733
  • Publication
    Global account management team design: Dimensions, determinants and performance outcomes
    ( 2006-09-28)
    Atanasova, Yana
    ;
    Senn, Christoph
    Designing and implementing global account management (GAM) teams represents a key task for suppliers that are expanding the scope of their relationships with global customers. However, research has not provided an explanation of how these teams function and what determines their performance. Extending concepts from several research streams regarding teams in an organization to the complex GAM context, we propose a framework of GAM team design and performance that recognizes team performance depends on the way the team structural and composition features balance the need for internal collaboration and external activity. The conceptualized design dimensions are primarily determined by the customer characteristics and demands. We thus provide a basis for future empirical studies on GAM teams by developing propositions for each construct. From a practical perspective, the framework emphasizes the importance of assessing the customer and designing teams that match the complexity of its requirements and configuration of activities to avoid the pitfalls of misaligned team arrangements.
    Type: conference paper
    URI: https://www.alexandria.unisg.ch/handle/20.500.14171/82470
  • Publication
    Unleashing inter-organizational capabilities in global supplier-buyer relationships for competitive advantage
    (Academy of International Business, 2006-06-23)
    Atanasova, Yana
    ;
    Thoma, Axel Michael
    ;
    Senn, Christoph
    ;
    Von Glinow, Mary Ann
    ;
    Kiyak, Tunga
    Global account management (GAM) has become a critical issue for multinationals competing in a dynamic global market environment. Approaching GAM from a dynamic capability perspective, we introduce a framework of intra- and inter-organizational capabilities through which we recognize that a supplier's dynamic GAM capability extends beyond operational sales routines to customer-linked strategic, organizational, and functional dimensions. Such a dynamic GAM capability reconfigures, integrates, and replicates the firms' skills, resources, and competences to form inter-organizational value co-creation capabilities, which in turn determine joint profit performance and competitive advantage. We develop propositions for each construct on the basis of results from a five-year GAM research consortium. The framework can serve as a base for further empirical research that investigates the implications of a dynamic capability approach to GAM. From a practical viewpoint, the framework underlines the importance of attributing strategic weight to GAM and acknowledging it as a collaborative, value-generating supplier-buyer process that can yield superior dyadic outcomes that neither firm could generate by itself.
    Type: conference paper
    URI: https://www.alexandria.unisg.ch/handle/20.500.14171/82781
  • Publication
    Global Account Management
    (Sage, 2009)
    Thoma, Axel Michael
    ;
    Senn, Christoph
    ;
    Wankel, Charles
    800 words entry on "Global Account Management" for the Encyclopedia of Global Business.
    Type: book section
    DOI: 10.4135/9781412964289.n438
    URI: https://www.alexandria.unisg.ch/handle/20.500.14171/77391
  • Publication
    Worldly Wise: Attracting and managing customers isn't the same when business goes global; Companies must be ready to adjust
    (Dow Jones & Company, Inc., 2007-03-03)
    Senn, Christoph
    ;
    Thoma, Axel Michael
    It's hard enough for a company to maintain relationships with customers that are spread across the country. It's even harder when the customers are spread across the world. But it has never been more crucial. As globalization spreads, it opens up opportunities for legions of companies in foreign markets. But to compete effectively, those companies have to change -- especially in the ways they court their biggest customers, many of which are stretching their legs globally as well. Strategies and organizational structures that once worked for serving clients on a local level are no longer efficient when there are 50 or 100 "locals." (...)
    Type: newspaper article
    Journal: The Wall Street Journal, in collaboration with MIT Sloan Management Review
    Volume: 2007
    Issue: -
    URI: https://www.alexandria.unisg.ch/handle/20.500.14171/80928