Nowadays in the sphere of business majority states that customer orientation is inevitable ingredient of successful approach to business development. It is actual, it is fashionable but after all sounds a bit cheesy.
What does we mean under customer orientation? — Speaking frankly, quite a lot.
We start from friendliness and readiness to help which are stoned in the phraze you often hear at shop’s entrance: «How can I help you?». We project shopwindows and shopboards to make them more attractive for the customers. We mastered supply chain instruments to help customers meet their freshly bought products on time. We developed versatile IT systems to support our everyday activities. We created tons of trainings and wrote hundreds of books to improve ourselves. We became too close to bigots with one word on our lips — Customer.
Does it help us? In terms of outdrawing competitors yes, but in terms of our business development for long-term not really. By our actions we gradually change the world around us. We change ourselves as the truth is that We are customers to each other. In neverending dash for competitive advantage we are getting closer and closer to the frontier where our own expectations as clients become inadequate.
We expect more and more from our suppliers making them reduce costs on constant basis what ends up in saving on people as they are key asset both in value and cost. Through the optimization plans companies have to diverse their structure to be able to place its parts in the regions with lower costs. Due to globalization today companies are able to choose best option throughout the world. It gives the desired effect but doesn’t change the tendency.
We believe in win-win deals and the presumption that the world is big enough to give welfare for everyone but it leads us to excessive consumption and incomprehension that it is not viable and won’t last forever. Our urge for satisfying our growing demands will put the situation on the brink someday and we will have to deal it. Being people from business we treat every problem in business surrounding like an effectiveness issue but often we don’t pay enough attention to social and political aspects of the trends we create.
We declare commitment and talk about «green» future but the real changes appear only when specific people start doing something new or continue doing the same differently. It stands for change in priorities or values. Customer relations here is a backbone as it changes the core — people’s habits, expectations, way of thinking, vision. If we care for long-term stability we should start to manage it with respect to the wider surrounding and the values which go beyond business itself.
The above is not written to give answers but only to set a question of limits we should define for our ultimate desire to please customers.
