It's more important than ever for companies to objectively assess the value of their customers. But conventional measures of "customer lifetime value" haven't been linked to overall business value and haven't been useful to senior managers.

Managing Customers as Investments overcomes both shortcomings.

Through practical examples and case studies, you'll learn a rigorous yet simple approach to estimating the lifetime value of your customers- and how you can use that information to make better tactical and strategic decisions. You'll learn how customer value calculations impact customer acquisition, service, retention, and segmentation as well as strategic M&A and alliance decisions.

Whether you're a CxO, line-of-business manager, marketer, analyst, or investor, Managing Customers as Investments will help you focus your resources where they'll deliver maximum value.

Key takeaways include Customers are assets

* How to calculate the value of customers in a simple way

* How the value of customers provides the basis for marketing strategy and planning

* The importance of balancing the value of the customer to the firm with the value the firm provides to the customer

* How to use the value of the customer as a basis for firm valuation and M&A decisions

* The implications for organization and incentive structure and the limitations of product and brand management



About the authors

SUNIL GUPTA is Meyer Feldberg Professor of Business at the Columbia Business School, Columbia University, New York. He has also taught at UCLA and the Harvard Business School; conducted seminars and consulted with companies worldwide; appeared on CNN, BBC, and PBS; and been quoted in publications, including The New York 7/mes, The Financial 7/mes, and The Washington Post. .

Gupta's expertise is in marketing strategy, pricing, and customer management. He has published extensively on these topics. His research papers have won several awards. He serves on the editorial boards of six journals. He is the cofounder and president of the EX Group, a strategic consulting group that specializes in customer management. He also served as an academic trustee of the Marketing Science Institute. He holds an MBA from Indian Institute of Management and a Ph.D. from Columbia University.

DONALD R. LEHMANN is George E. Warren Professor of Business at the Columbia Business School, Columbia University, New York. His research interests include modeling individual and group decision-making, empirical generalizations and meta-analysis, the introduction and adoption of new products and innovations, and measuring the value of marketing assets such as brands and customers. He has taught courses in marketing, management, and statistics at Columbia and has also taught at Cornell, Dartmouth, New York University, and the University of Pennsylvania.

Lehmann has published in and served on the editorial boards of several journals and was founding editor of Marketing Letters. His books include Market Research and Analysis, Analysis for Marketing Planning, Product Management, and Meta-Analysis in Marketing.

He served as executive director of the Marketing Science Institute and as president of the Association for Consumer Research. He is the recipient of many awards, including the 2000 Paul D. Converse award and the AMA McGraw Hill-Irwin distinguished marketing educator award. He holds an M.S.I.A. and Ph.D.from the Krannert School of Purdue University.

Gupta and Lehmann, along with Joel Steckel, are coauthors of Marketing Research.