Mindfully going omni-channel: An economic decision model for evaluating omni-channel strategies

In the digital age, customers want to define on their own how to interact with organizations during their customer journeys. Thus, many organizations struggle to implement an omni-channel strategy (OCS) that meets their customers' channel preferences and can be operated efficiently. Despite this high practical need, research on omni-channel management predominantly takes a descriptive perspective. What is missing is prescriptive knowledge that guides organizations in the valuation and selection of an appropriate OCS. Most existing studies investigate single facets of omni-channel management in detail while neglecting the big picture. They also require customer journeys to follow sequential and organization-defined purchase decision processes. To address this research gap, we propose an economic decision model that considers online and offline channels, the opening and closing of channels, non-sequential customer journeys, and customers' channel preferences. Drawing from the principles of value-based management, the decision model recommends choosing the OCS with the highest contribution to an organization's long-term firm value. We applied and validated the decision model based on real-world data from a German bank. (C) 2018 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.