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Research > Customers.com Strategies > Industry Case Studies

Industry Case Studies Articles

How are organizations in a variety of industries making it easier for customers to do business with them? How are firms making it easy for consumers to get things done and for business customers to do their jobs? How are companies reinventing themselves around customers’ needs and desired outcomes? Our case studies are based on interviews as well as on our own deep experience in working with organizations to align their strategies, their cross-functional employees and partners, and their success metrics around the things that matter most to customers.

Sample Article:

Scitable: A NextGen Ecosystem for Learning & Teaching Science

By Patricia Seybold

Scitable (Scitable.com) is a 21st century online learning resource for students and faculty designed to replace textbooks. It's the first offering from Nature Publishing Group's new Nature Education division. Scitable was officially launched in January 2009 with a focus on the study of genetics. Over the next several years, Scitable's content will be expanded to cover many scientific disciplines.

HOW TO INNOVATE WITHIN A LARGE ORGANIZATION

We've all heard that innovating within an existing company is difficult. Most of the success stories about internal innovation share a common story line: You separate the team of innovators from the "mother ship." You set them up in their own separate space. You provide them with the freedom to challenge the parent company's culture and assumptions. You offer air cover from internal politics. You give them a clear, high-level charter and mandate. You supply limited resources and a short timeline. You let them figure out the rest. Nature Publishing Group followed this classic intrapreneurship model to develop Scitable, their new Nature Education venture.

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Explore Our Industry Case Studies:

Aerospace Case Studies


Airbus’s Super Jumbo Content Challenge
Fine-Grained Information Objects, Variants, and Layered Architecture Form the Solution



Apparel Case Studies


CustoMax®: Platform & Ecosystem for Custom-Tailored Apparel
How to Build a Smart Customization Ecosystem

Duck Head Apparel Goes National on the Web
Non-Catalog Retailer Tackles E-Commerce

Spreadshirt: Customers Want to Create Their Own Brands and Amplify Your Brand
Best Practices from the MIT Smart Customization Seminar 2008



Automotive Case Studies


Ford Launches the ePIM Initiative
Using WebSphere and MQSeries to Integrate Disparate Enterprise Applications

OnStar
Providing a Decade of Personalized Service for Safety and Convenience

SAAB Cars USA
Streamlining the Customer Experience

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Cable and Telecommunications Case Studies


Asterisk and Digium
Shaking Up the Telecom Industry by Harnessing Customers’ Creativity



Consumer Electronics Case Studies


Lego Mindstorms NXT
Powered by Customers’ Inventiveness

Philips Consumer Electronics Gets Closer to Its Customers
Personalization and Manufacturers’ Aisles Are Key Strategies for Customer and Dealer Loyalty



Education Case Studies


Nature Education Group Reinvents Textbooks
Scitable: A NextGen Ecosystem for Learning & Teaching Science

Innovation in Education: School Children Improve Their Families' Livelihoods
At URDT, It Takes a Child to Raise a Village



Financial Services Case Studies


Bankers Trust Australia Extends Its Marketing Reach
The Firm Develops a Campaign Management Application Using Data Warehouse Tools and Technologies

Campaign Management at Nationwide Building Society
Improving the Cross-Channel, Cross-Lifecycle Customer Experience

How Zopa Is Creating a New Financial Services Exchange
Peer-to-Peer Lending and Borrowing for “Freeformers”



Footwear Case Studies


How Adidas Moved to Smart Customization & Personalized Coaching
A Journey from Mass-Produced to Smart Customization

Footwearetc.com Walks Your Way
Constant Improvement in Marketing and Customer Experience Yield Big Gains

How Keds Uses Zazzle's Customization
Best Practices from the MIT Smart Customization Seminar 2008

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Health and Fitness Case Studies


Koko Fitness
Discovering Baby Boomers’ Health and Fitness Issues

Building Interactive Feedback into Your Products and Surrounding Services
How Koko Fitness Enables Four Kinds of Interactive Feedback

MedStar Health
Using Collaboration to Improve Healthcare from Good to Great: An interview with Dr. Peter Basch, Medical Director of Ambulatory Clinical Systems

Pan American Health Organization
Using Online Meeting Software to Collaborate on Addressing Health Issues throughout the Americas



High Tech Case Studies



The New B2B Marketing in Practice

Lessons in Content Marketing, Lead Nurturing and Scoring

Facebook Tries to Clean Up Its Privacy Act
Can Facebook Users Really Expect Any Privacy Protections?

Amazon’s Other Business: Cloud Computing
Why and How Is Amazon Web Services, LLC Shaping the Future of Web-Based Businesses?

How American Power Conversion Streamlines Its Product Line and Offers More Customization
Best Practices from the MIT Smart Customization Seminar 2008

Cisco Systems
Growing a Vibrant Online Community for More Than a Decade

How Citrix Evolved Its Online Community of Customer Advisors
How to Recruit and Manage a Private Customer Community—Patty’s Visionaries’ Interviews’ Series

What Business Models Work in an Open Source World?
ohesive Financial Technologies: How a Software Start-Up Thinks through Its Options

Managing Product Content at Hewlett-Packard
A Practical, yet Innovative and Elegant Approach

HP Provides Cross-Channel Inventory Visibility
Responding to the Moment of Truth: 'Where Is This Product in Stock?'

IBM.com’s New Look: More Than a Face Lift
Using Service-Oriented Architecture to Provide an Adaptive Web Experience

Moving from Cost Cutting to Customer-Contributed Innovation at Mentor Graphics
An Interview with Kim Kelley, Program Manager, Customer Support Marketing

Mozilla Firefox
Supporting Innovation and Choice by Moving Software to Open Source

National Instruments
A 30-Year History of Enabling Customer Innovation

National Semiconductor’s New WEBENCH® Visualizer Raises the Bar
A Sophisticated, Yet Simple to Use, Web Dashboard

National Semiconductor Seduces Its Value Chain
A Best Practice in Electronic Commerce

Delivering Content in Context at National Semiconductor
Organizing and Visualizing Content for Reference Hardware Designs

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Hospitality and Travel Case Studies


Virtually Being There
Royal Caribbean Cruises, Ltd. Creates an Online Onboard Experience



Insurance Case Studies


Empire Blue Cross and Blue Shield Delivers Customer-Centric Services over the Web
Using E-Business Portals to Transform Relationships with Members, Physicians, Brokers, and Employer

Standard Life
Creating the Infrastructure to Take Advantage of Changing Business Conditions



Legal Case Studies


Using Business Process Management to Streamline Litigation Discovery
Supporting Collaborative Litigation Discovery with Exterro Fusion at Fredrikson and Byron, P.A. - An Interview with Chad Papenfuss, Litigation Support Administrator

Providing Matter-Centric Collaboration at Holland & Knight
Expediting the Delivery of Legal Services by Unifying the Management of Business Information



Life Sciences Case Studies


Using Lakes to Monitor the Health of the Planet
Using Sensors and Cross-Disciplinary Teams to Understand Complex Ecosystems Quickly



Manufacturing Case Studies


3M Integrated Packaging Tool
Managing the Custom Content for Labeling Manufactured Goods

Bacardi Limited Leverages Groupware into Electronic Commerce
Providing a View into the Supply/Distribution Chain

GE ColorXpress® Services
Helping Customers Design Differentiated Products

Landscape Forms’ Use of GE ColorXpress® Services Customer Innovation Center for a New Product Launch
Launching a New Product Line Based on Customers’ Input

Mars Direct: Customized Candy Combats Commoditization
Best Practices from the MIT Smart Customization Seminar 2008

Sharp Microelectronics of the Americas’ Strategy for Integrating Enterprise Applications
Managing the Demand for Semiconductor Components in the American Marketplace

Producing an XML-Based E-Catalog at Snap-on Incorporated
Maintaining an Adaptive Product Content Management Solution for Enterprise Operations

How Visual Comfort Uses GroveSite’s Collaborative Workspaces to Improve Time-to-Market
A Small Lighting Design and Manufacturing Firm’s Innovative Use of Shared Workspace

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Media and Publishing Case Studies


Facebook Tries to Clean Up Its Privacy Act
Can Facebook Users Really Expect Any Privacy Protections?

Pandora: Delivering Personalized Internet Radio
How Pandora Internet Radio Combines Taxonomy, Crowdsourcing, and Personalization to Improve Music Playlists

Will Amazon Lose Marketshare to Apple in Digital Content?
How Amazon.com Could Sell More Digital Content in the Post iPad Era

AIP UniPHY: Creating a Professional Social Network
How the American Institute of Physics Is Creating Value Add for Its Members

Outside Innovation at the BBC
Q&A with Matt Locke, Head of Innovation, BBC New Media

Getty Images
Making It Easy for Image-Buying Professionals to Do Their Jobs

Streamlining Production at the Harvard Business Review
Just Enough XML

Tikatok: Kids Create and Publish Books
Smart Customization and Customer Co-Creation in Action

The Wall Street Journal Interactive Edition, 1997
Extending and Enhancing the Marketplace for Business Information

Adding Executive Job Searching to the Wall Street Journal Interactive Edition
Crossing the Digital Divide for Job Recruiting



Not-for-Profit Case Studies


Developing Change Agents to Spawn Grass Roots Innovation and Transformation in Africa
Lessons Learned from Rural Africa Could Apply to Your Organization!



Retail Case Studies


The Amazon/Office Depot Relationship for Selling Computer Components
Offering a Seamless Customer Experience across Multiple Business Partners

Bathing Your Organization in Real-Time Customer Context
Using Online Communities to Understand Customers’ Passions, Issues, and Needs at Hallmark, Unilever, Kraft, RC2 and Charles Schwab

Muji
Engaging Customers to Help with Product Design

Staples
Customers Help Bring a Customer Experience Promise to Life

Web Services Sell Groceries at Tesco.com
New Approach Provides Rich Customer Experience and Future-Proofs the Home-Shopping Application



Services Case Studies


Unisfair Helps Enterprises Increase Lead Generation Activities
Version 9.0 of the Unisfair Virtual Engagement Platform Lets Customers Self-Select Their Interests on Their Time Schedules

Corporate Executive Board Responds to Customers’ Request for Increased Collaborationtle
Providing a Collaborative Environment for Sharing Messages about Compliance and Ethics

Lessons from FindMRO.com, the MRO Sleuth
Best Practices in Content and Search

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