Managing Global Customers

Multinational companies need to manage their relationships with multinational customers with a globally integrated approach. This book provides a systematic framework for developing and implementing such global customer management programs. It draws on in-depth research at over 20 major U.S. and European multinational companies, such as ABB, Bechtel, BP, Bosch, British Airways, Carrefour, Daimler-Chrysler, Hewlett-Packard, HSBC, IBM, Schlumberger, Shell, Siemens, Tesco, Unilever, Vodafone, Wal-Mart, and Xerox.

Readers will learn how to

· think about managing global customers in the context of their overall global strategy
· develop effective global customer management programs
· overcome barriers to implementation and success
· build better relationships with important customers
· get the entire company to engage with managing global customers

This book takes a strategic, total business, and not just sales approach to managing global customers. It also takes a customer as well as a supplier perspective. The book provides guidance on both strategy and implementation. Yip and Bink's Managing Global Customers takes a systematic and logic driven approach, yet provides many creative insights and practical advice.

Managing Global Customers highlights the rewards of taking a step beyond global account management to create a Global Customer Management approach, integrating globally all aspects of the relationship between supplier and customer. The book gives a framework that guides international companies in using their relationships with global customers to their full potential.

George Yip, author of the widely-praised Total Global Strategy, and Audrey Bink tackle in-depth one of the most important aspects of global strategy: How to manage global customers.

George Yip is Vice President and Director of Research & Innovation at Capgemini Consulting, based in London. He wrote this book while he was Professor of Strategic and International Management at London Business School and Lead Senior Fellow of the U.K.'s Advanced Institute of Management Research. He held the Chair of Marketing and Strategy at Cambridge University, and has also held faculty positions at Harvard Business School and UCLA, and visiting positions at China-Europe International Business School, Georgetown, Oxford, and Stanford. His book, Total Global Strategy: Managing for Worldwide Competitive Advantage (Prentice Hall, 1992) was selected as one of the 30 best business books of 1992, has been published in ten languages, and updated as Total Global Strategy II (2003). (george.yip@capgemini.com).
Audrey Bink is Head of Marketing Communications at Uxbridge College in West London. She previously held a research position at London Business School, with her work focusing on Global Customer-Supplier Management. As a product manager and market development manager, Audrey has also been active in global industrial marketing at DMV International, the ingredients division of dairy cooperative Campina. She holds an M.Sc. in Industrial Engineering and Management Science from Eindhoven University of Technology (The Netherlands). (abink@uxbridgecollege.ac.uk).