Strategic Imperatives for Customer Centric Approach

Organizations have been forced to transform themselves from “product-centric” to “customer-centric” for various reasons. Becoming customer centric is one of the most important aims of any organization. Customer Relationship Management has attracted the attention of both marketing practitioners and researchers over the last decade. Despite, or maybe due to, the attention drawn to the subject, a clear agreement on what CRM is and especially how CRM should be developed remains lacking. It is now commonly understood that CRM involves technology, drives marketing, sales, and customer services, and is often approached as a business strategy to create value for an organization through the creation of profitable long-term customer relationships. Significant progress has been made in identifying and researching the components of CRM individually. The roles of CRM applications, customer knowledge, customer satisfaction, and a customer-centric strategy have all been subject of research lately. However, to the best of the author’s knowledge, no comprehensive research has been conducted to identify and understand the strategic imperatives for developing customer centric approach, and that is the core objective of this chapter. Moreover, the advancements in society and technology leading to convergence of information, communication, and technology, coupled with acceleration in globalization, competitive environments, and changing customer’s preferences have created new challenges as well as opportunities for leveraging knowledge about customers. Also we have yet to find research that shows a relationship between strategic imperatives and customer centric approach.