Page 123 - MYM 2015

The Customer Culture Imperative:
Marketing Destined to Lead a Better World
Linden Brown PhD Chris L. Brown
Abstract:This article de nes what it is to be customer-centric based on empirical research and an extensive study of the most customer focused organizations in the world. It identi es seven disciplines that re ect what the most customer-centric businesses do and how they embed these into their culture. It also links the seven disciplines to superior business performance and outlines the relevant market strategies they support. Finally it describes how the level of customer centricity of an organization, business unit, function or team can be measured and benchmarked.
Good companies will meet needs; great companies will create markets. Philip Kotler1
The discipline of modern marketing, first espoused by Philip Kotler, is centered on the philosophy that marketing’s primary role is to create value that will satisfy current and future customer needs profitably.He also endorses the definition that says: “Marketing is the activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners, and society at large.” (American Marketing Association, 2013).2
This market-oriented philosophy was rst practiced in large businesses by Proctor & Gamble (P&G) through development of product management and brand management organizational structures. The product manager was responsible for leading his or her brand pro tably by in uencing all parts of the organization to create and deliver products that satis ed customer needs at prices that consumers were prepared to pay.
While many other fast-moving-consumer products companies followed P&G’s lead, it seems the majority in business-to-business industries and in service businesses did not.
Since the 1990s, marketing academics have explored the rationale of the “marketing concept” more closely as it became clear that many organizations were not implementing it and remained “product” or “sales” focused” in the way in which they thought about and conducted their businesses.
Narver and Slater (1990, 1998)3 were pioneers
in researching the effect of market orientation
on business pro tability and providing an initial framework for its implementation. Slater and Narver (1994, 1995) also studied how the competitive environment affected the market orientation- performance relationship and the relevance of a “learning” organization to effective market orientation.
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