The Center for Customer-Based Execution & Strategy (C-Cubes) enables research scholars to develop cutting-edge, peer-reviewed research practices and insights related to customer-based strategy. Its mission is to share these research-driven insights with both for-profit and nonprofit organizations, aiming to enhance customer value, employee engagement and shareholder returns.
Ultimately, the center seeks to reimagine strategy planning and execution in organizations. In this process, the center can examine, inform and improve traditional strategy planning that often lacks a customer focus and shows little or no correlation with financial performance.
We are home to exceptional young scholars in strategy, marketing, organizational behavior, finance, and operations. The Center for Customer-Based Execution & Strategy leverages strong connections in key industries—such as energy, healthcare, education and technology—to benefit the community. Our goal is to unite diverse business disciplines to improve strategy, customer value, employee engagement and overall performance.
Congratulations to Kamini Gupta, Donal Crilly and Thomas Greckhamer. Their paper, published in Strategic Management Journal, explores how stakeholder engagement and national institutions shape firm performance. This work exemplifies C-CUBES’ mission: delivering rigorous, actionable insights into customer-based strategy and execution.
Kamini Gupta
Lecturer in International Business & Comparative Management (ICBM), King’s College London
Donal Crilly
Professor of Strategy and Entrepreneurship; Chair, Strategy and Entrepreneurship Faculty, London Business School
Thomas Greckhamer
William W. Rucks IV Endowed Chair and Professor of Management, Louisiana State University
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Listen to Our Podcast
Hear from Faculty Director, Center for Customer-Based Execution & Strategy J. Hugh Liedtke Professor of Marketing, Vikas Mikkal
In this episode, Vikas joins host Brian Jackson ’21 to explain why so many corporate strategies fail: the buzzwords, shiny-object initiatives, and mission-statement retreats that produce 50 priorities and zero focus. He shows what it looks like when organizations commit to the one or two things that genuinely create customer value — and stay the course.
He also shares how this approach comes to life through his Executive Education course, Strategic Growth Through Customer Focus, and the Center for Customer-Based Execution and Strategy, which produced a landmark report – interviewing over 3,000 customers to reveal what actually drives value across industries and what doesn't.
The 2025 Customer Value Report
The biannual customer value report from the Center for Customer-Based Execution & Strategy helps leaders understand what customers value most across 18 industries, where those priorities differ across sectors, and how to make data-driven decisions about strategy, positioning and investment.
