http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/ Knowledge@Wharton is an online resource that offers the latest business insights, information, and research from a variety of sources. Content includes analysis of current business trends, interviews with industry leaders and faculty, articles based on the most recent business research, book reviews, conference and seminar reports, and links to other websites. en-us Copyright (c) 2009 The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania http://www.wharton.upenn.edu/faculty/gans_noah.jpg http://www.wharton.upenn.edu/faculty/ 125 45 Wharton Faculty Research Marketing http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article.cfm?articleid=820&source=rss Managers have long been interested in weeding out customers that they consider to be less profitable than others. The question is, how do managers determine who belongs in that group? According to several Wharton marketing professors, there is no easy answer, despite new and increasingly sophisticated efforts to measure what is called “Customer Lifetime Value” (CLV) – the present value of the likely future income stream generated by an individual purchaser. CLV, it turns out, is hard to calculate and harder to use. Wed, 30 Jul 2003 00:00:00 EST Managing Technology http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article.cfm?articleid=540&source=rss For most of the past century, factories offered a path upward for Americans short on education. But millions of “good” manufacturing jobs have fallen victim to automation and global competition, leaving many low and semi-skilled workers to turn to a 21st century replacement: the telephone call center. What are the advantages of call centers, how can the technology best be used and what is the outlook for call-center employment in the next decade? Wed, 10 Apr 2002 00:00:00 EST Marketing http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article.cfm?articleid=390&source=rss Customer relationship management, or CRM, is the buzzword du jour in business circles. To hear some proponents talk about it, all a company needs to do is buy and install a sophisticated CRM software package to maximize its returns from customers. Wharton faculty members point out, however, that making CRM work involves doing a lot more. Wed, 04 Jul 2001 00:00:00 EST Operations Management http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article.cfm?articleid=22&source=rss Business models often try to track the costs of poor performance in products and services. These exercises are rarely able, however, to measure how repeated failures can impact customer attitudes toward erring suppliers. Wharton's Noah Gans has developed a method to measure the effects of poor quality on customer loyalty. Mon, 24 May 1999 16:57:25 EST