EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Profit Margin, Costs, and EBIT are all important KPIs – but what about customers? For our partner RHI Magnesita, a well-established market leader in the manufacturing of refractory products based across the globe, we analyzed, for the Europa, Turkey, and CIS region, how and to what extent Customer Centricity is lived within the company, what potentials exist and what improvements could be made to reach those.

Goal

This project aimed to confirm or reject the thesis « There is no unified Customer Centricity understanding and living within RHIM ». This included the identification and analysis of gaps in perception, definition, and living of Customer Centricity, as well as the development of measures and actions to optimize Customer Centricity at RHIM.

Methodology

After researching the theory behind Customer Centricity (CC) and defining it, a questionnaire was developed to identify gaps between the theory and the Customer Centricity understanding and living of employees at RHIM. The first stage of the applied Design Thinking method was the Empathize phase, in which 88 interviews were conducted across different levels and departments along the whole value chain. Afterward, in the Define phase, the data from the interviews were analysed, and seven Key Insights were derived. Moreover, a Customer Centricity Gap, showing improvement potential with regard to CC definition, measures, and communication across departments, was identified from these results. Subsequently, several ideas were developed in the Ideation phase to close the gap. Two of those ideas, an internal communication concept and a concept to make Customer Centricity measurable, were further elaborated in the Prototype phase. Finally, concepts were tested by continuously obtaining feedback from the project partner to develop the concepts further.

Results

Through the numerous interviews, we were able to give RHIM an overview of the status quo concerning CC by providing a detailed gap analysis. Moreover, seven ideas were developed on how to close the gaps. Finally, two of them were developed into concrete concepts. Thanks to the close cooperation with RHIM, these concepts are not only theoretically sound but also implementable at RHIM.

Cooperation Partner

• RHI Magnesita
  Kranichberggasse 6, 1120 Wien
  Austria
  www.rhimagnesita.com/de/

Contact Person

• Jürgen Schweigler
  juergen.schweigler@rhimagnesita.com

Student Team

• Marcel Eisele

• Florian Gruber

• Joël Hainzl

• Severin Lechner

• Birgit Schafzahl

• Daniel Szegner

Project Manager

• Carola Wandres

• Erik Kommol