Around 30pc of Fortune 500 firms, including Intel, IBM and American Express, have restructured around customer groups, but an analysis of 37 companies shows that return on assets dropped 39pc, on average, after customer-centric restructurings; it was only after 10 quarters that performance recovered, if it recovered at all. Still, the potential payoff is real, the researchers, led by Ju-Yeon Lee of Lehigh University, write on HBR.org: When companies showed improvement a few years down the road, their ROA was 11pc higher than before the restructuring.

(Source: HBR.org)

Published in Dawn, Economic & Business July 27th, 2015

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