The Role of Customer Interactions and Internal Cooperation to Enhance FutureReadiness in Customer Centric Companies

In order to create unique customer value and stay competitive also in the long run, customer-centric firms need to develop capabilities to identify relevant trends. The scarce existent research, notably on absorptive capacities, and common management practice suggest that customer interactions and internal cooperation increase future readiness. With data from a cross-industry management survey, we confirm that both factors indeed fully mediate the relationship between customer-centric orientation and future readiness. Multi-group structural equation analyses help to specify how organizational factors impact the creation of future readiness and provide rich managerial implications for resource allocation.