The last decade Professor Martin Boehm spent researching and consulting in the area of customer management had a profound effect on his thinking as a marketing professor at IE Business School. Those were years during which the corporate world finally realized the necessity to shift from transaction based to relationship based marketing. What really interests Prof. Boehm from a marketing standpoint is the management of customer relationships in order to increase a firmâs long-term profitability. âCustomers are important intangible assets of a firm that should be valued and managedâ, he says. âOnly by attracting, retaining, and growing profitable customer relationships will firms be successful in the futureâ. His research therefore aims to provide managerial implications on how to build profitable and long-lasting customer relationships. His primary concern is to quantify the impact of various customer management activities on a customerâs lifetime value â the net present value of the stream of future profits expected over a customerâs lifetime. At the same time, Prof. Boehm develops analytical models to estimate or approximate a customerâs lifetime value. âOne of the major challenges in customer relationship management is still to arrive at reliable estimates of a customerâs future profits and lifetimeâ, he says. âNot being able to measure a customerâs lifetime value prevents the development of successful strategies for customer managementâ. Prof. Boehm believes that his work on customer relationship management has broad implications for the corporate world. âI intend to develop insights on how to satisfy customer needs, but at the same time to consider the monetary consequences of doing so,â he says. âThis will provide firms with a roadmap for growth.â