Generating Customer Knowledge Is a Critical Strategy for the Branch General Manager
Over the past seventeen years there has been a great deal written about the concept known as market orientation. No need to get nervous about academic phrases at this point.
(prHWY.com) November 29, 2012 - Mumbai, IND, India --
Market orientation is just a fancy phrase for collecting good market intelligence, spreading the information collected around the organization, and then using this information to offer products and services that respond to the market needs.
It is not a stretch to call the work done by researchers Bernard Jaworski and Ajay Kohli (Journal of Marketing. 1993) a game changing report on this subject. In this article we will adapt several of their survey questions to understand why many departments, divisions, or branches end up in so much performance mud every year and why guys like me get called in to help fix them.
The following questions should help create a useful checklist for gauging our skill (or lack of) in generating relevant information about current and future customer needs, competitive information, and industry trends. Remember, these questions should be asked by every General Manager in a B2B industrial or service situation.
Does branch management meet with
target customers at least once per year to have a discussion about what products and services they will need 2, 3, or 5 years from now? This is to be a dedicated meeting (s) for the purpose of exploring the customer's ideas. There is no overt or covert selling in this meeting.
The GM needs an external perspective of the business and inviting the customer in to your thinking is the most effective way to build a solid
customer relationship. The caution here is that you must be willing to listen and to act. How do your operations, manufacturing, or service personnel interact directly with customers to learn how to improve service? This kind of interaction should be coordinated with sales and general management.
We need an interview guide so we don't waste time and so that the information collected can be combined with other customer information. I find that at budget time most branches say they are going to do more of this next year. Unfortunately more "pressing realities" happen and because there is no specific action plan in the branch to support this goal nothing improves.
Lean more in details
Customer Knowledge and visits for Case Study on market orientation |
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