If leather seats come only with a package that includes a six-disc CD changer, the customer won't be able to unbundle the options and pick only what he wants.

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When it comes to a cure, Miss Zuboff and Mr Maxmin see the answer partly in the structure of corporations, which they regard as too narcissistic, too stuck in old concepts of mass production, even too male-dominated (real men, it seems, won't let the customer come first).

ECONOMIST: Face value

According to the Nihon Keizai Shimbun article the company has won 125 orders for the MRJ, the first to a U.S. customer originally scheduled for 2014.

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And even for retailers that effectively use customer rewards programs to their advantage, the work won't be finished until those programs are fully integrated into their Web businesses.

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Selwyn Gerber, a managing partner with offshore banking firm PrimeGlobal USA, said his company considers the Internet so insecure that it won't use it at all to transmit sensitive customer data.

CNN: Security experts say hackers have the edge

Lockheed Martin has a long tradition of in-your-face customer relations that occasionally has led to the loss of federal business the company should have won.

FORBES: Move up http://i.forbesimg.com t Move down

The device won raves for its elegant design and clean interface, but what makes it a winner is its relevance to the customer.

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But the challenges facing Sprint, such as customer attrition in its Nextel business and its struggles to find a niche in the market place won't go away.

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