The Concept of Customer -Orientation and Its Implication for Competence Development

In this article we discuss the importance of customer-orientation for corporate success. Customer-orientation is not merely managerial jargon, although a quick glance through annual reports would lead one to such a conclusion. There is some substantial meaning in the concept. Customerorientation is not the exclusive right of the marketing department. In fact, we argue that customer-orientation is the core of business success, the meaning of which has to be disseminated throughout the organisation, the meaning of which has to be understood and internalised by everyone. We argue that integrated customer-orientation is the basis for corporate competence development, and thus competence development and management of core competencies becomes important for both internal and external business processes. Customer-orientation is therefore effective knowledge management.