Today's consumer is a centaur: a new hybrid who's mastering the latest technologies, but is still driven by age-old human desires and motivations. "Cyberconsumer" business models ignored human reality: that's why they failed. But "back-to-basics" ignores the deep changes the Internet has wrought. The genie's out of the bottle: your customers have profoundly new expectations -- and you have powerful new tools for delivering on them. Convergence Marketing Strategy illuminates the "centaur," showing what today's customers can do, what they're choosing to do, how they're evolving, and where they're headed. Jerry Wind and Vijay Mahajan identify "5Cs" at the heart of the new consumer relationship: customerization, community, channels, competitive value propositions, and choice tools. You'll discover strategies and tactics for responding right now -- and a complete framework for refocusing processes, structure, people, incentives, and technology to serve the centaur tomorrow.
YORAM (JERRY) WIND is The Lauder Professor, Professor of Marketing, Founding Editor of Wharton School Publishing, and Academic Director of The Wharton Fellows Network at the University of Pennsylvania. He is also the Founder and Director of the SEI Center for Advanced Studies in Management, The Wharton School's think tank. Wind led the development of a number of key Wharton programs including the reinvention of the Wharton MBA curriculum and the creation of the Wharton Executive MBA Program. Among his many affiliations is former chancellor, the International Academy of Management (IAM). One of the world's most cited marketing authors, his books include Driving Change: How the Best Companies Are Preparing for the 21st Century, and The Power of Impossible Thinking. Dr. Wind has served as an advisor to many Fortune 500 firms and non-U.S. multinationals throughout the financial services, pharmaceuticals, information, and consumer packaged goods industries, and as advisor and board member for a wide range of entrepreneurial ventures. His consulting focuses on global corporate and business strategy, corporate transformation, marketing strategy, and especially new business development. He is the recipient of all the major marketing awards. Wind received a Ph.D. from Stanford University.
VIJAY MAHAJAN is John P. Harbin Centennial Chair of Business and Professor of Marketing at the McCombs School of Business of the University of Texas at Austin. He has served as a marketing consultant to such companies as Edward Jones, Dell, and Frito-Lay, and has run executive development programs throughout North America, South America, Europe, and Asia. Mahajan serves on the advisory boards of several high-tech start-ups in Austin and is author of several books and award-winning articles, including New Product Diffusion Models (International Series in Quantitative Marketing, Volume 11). He has received several lifetime achievement awards for his research on innovation diffusion and marketing research and strategy.
ROBERT GUNTHER, founder of Gunther Communications, has collaborated on or co-authored more than ten books, including Hypercompetition, Buyout: The Insider's Guide to Buying Your Own Company, The Wealthy 100, Leveraging Japan, Wharton on Managing Emerging Technologies, Wharton on Dynamic Competitive Strategy and Wharton on Making Decisions.
