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Customer Intimacy Achieving Better Results for Supplier and Customer Alike |
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By Vadim Kotelnikov, Founder, Ten3 BUSINESS e-COACH, 1000ventures.com
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"Customers grow ever more demanding, and suppliers must change just to keep up." |
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Benefits to Everyone in Your Organization1
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Customer intimacy
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Why Customer Intimacy? Customer intimacy is the largest source of your growth, sustainable competitive advantage, and profit. Everyone in your organization should practice it. Customer-intimate companies bring an entirely fresh perspective. They discover unsuspected problems, detect unrealized potential, and create a dynamic synergy with customers. They often merge their operations with those of their customers. In the integration of their operations, suppliers become more than merely useful: They become indispensable.1 Customer Intimacy As a Competitive Advantage
Businesses have traditionally relied on
technology and
product innovation for
competitive advantage. However, as products
became commodities due to global competition and relentless technological
advances, the battleground for
differentiation and customer
value creation shifted to customer intimacy and
service.
Case in Point Dell Inc. Michael Dell founded Dell Computer Corporation in 1984 with $1,000 and an unprecedented idea – to build relationships directly with customers. Dell Inc. is the fastest growing company in the industry. It was added to the Fortune 500 list in 1992 and achieved more than $44 billion in sales in 2004. The three golden Dell rules are:
Dell Computers were the first personal computer company to organize and build itself around the idea of direct customer feedback. "Our attitude was diametrically opposed to the engineering-driven thinking of "Let's invent something and then go push it onto customers who might be willing to buy it." Instead I founded the company with the intention of creating products and services based on a keen sense of the customer's input and the customer's needs. I spend about 40% of my time with customers," says Michael Dell.7 Customer Intimacy vs. Customer Satisfaction "Customer intimacy doesn't call for increasing customer satisfaction. It requires taking responsibility for customer results. It doesn't impose arm's length goodwill. It requires down-in-the-trenches solidarity, the exchange of useful information, and the cooperative pursuit of results."1 Steve Job's 12 Rules of Success
IDEO's Innovation Practice Tips
Case in Point 25 Lessons from Jack Welch
Two Basic Ways to Compete and Prosper in Any Market... Three Common Traits of Marketplace Champions... New Mindset – a New Way of Doing Business... Employee Empowerment... Value Innovation... Virtual Integration as a Source of Competitive Advantage... Creating a Workforce that Would Provide a Competitive Advantage... Behaving Like a Small Company... Customer Satisfaction... Customer Retention...
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