Martin Boehm
Professor of Marketing
Bio
The last decade Professor Martin Boehm spent researching and consulting in the area of customer management had a profound effect on his thinking as a marketing professor at IE Business School. Those were years during which the corporate world finally realized the necessity to shift from transaction based to relationship based marketing. What really interests Prof. Boehm from a marketing standpoint is the management of customer relationships in order to increase a firm鈥檚 long-term profitability. 鈥淐ustomers are important intangible assets of a firm that should be valued and managed鈥�, he says. 鈥淥nly by attracting, retaining, and growing profitable customer relationships will firms be successful in the future鈥�. His research therefore aims to provide managerial implications on how to build profitable and long-lasting customer relationships. His primary concern is to quantify the impact of various customer management activities on a customer鈥檚 lifetime value 鈥� the net present value of the stream of future profits expected over a customer鈥檚 lifetime. At the same time, Prof. Boehm develops analytical models to estimate or approximate a customer鈥檚 lifetime value. 鈥淥ne of the major challenges in customer relationship management is still to arrive at reliable estimates of a customer鈥檚 future profits and lifetime鈥�, he says. 鈥淣ot being able to measure a customer鈥檚 lifetime value prevents the development of successful strategies for customer management鈥�. Prof. Boehm believes that his work on customer relationship management has broad implications for the corporate world. 鈥淚 intend to develop insights on how to satisfy customer needs, but at the same time to consider the monetary consequences of doing so,鈥� he says. 鈥淭his will provide firms with a roadmap for growth.鈥�
