Transfer from: "Development" No. 23 February 2005 Core point: Customers are not God, the market is God.
Customers are not God
It is a major progress in the business philosophy from the product orientation to the customer. But from the high level of strategy, the customer's orientation is not enough, many times is dangerous, sometimes even fatal. At least three reasons, the company cannot treat the customer as God.
First, the customer may be wrong
Especially when it is related to new products, customers say that they want, do not say true. Customers now say that they want, do not express it in the future. Conversely, the customer now says that you don't want it, don't speaking for a while. Don't --- Hard Drive Manufacturers Seagate Technology is the customer.
in
5.25 inches
The era of hard drive rulers, Seagate is the main supplier of IBM and compatible with their compatible personal computers. Seagate company developed
3.5 inches
The driver does not cause interest in these customers because its storage capacity is not large enough. So Seagate gave up, and other companies launched
3.5 inches
The driver opened the market because of the small size and weight, the market opened in a portable computer and a small desktop. quickly,
3.5 inches
The drive's storage capacity is also rapidly improved, and it is possible to meet the requirements of the mainstream market of the personal computer. Seagate has been in a hurry at this time, but the personal computer market is lost because of the backwardness of scale and experience. Ball and Christ Tamba, professor, President Harvard Business School, pointed out: Seagate's failure is too "close to customers".
III: Not all customer needs should be satisfied
Some customers' needs, or some needs of customers, companies should choose not to meet. Master Bud said: Strategic positioning requirements make a hierarchical, meet all customer needs of customers. "Customer-centric" is wrong.
He found many Japanese companies to walk into troubles due to homogenization. One of the reasons is that the Japanese serving tradition determines that they will do everything possible to meet any needs expressed by customers, and ultimately make their own competitive positioning. Qing, becoming a company who wants to do everything for all customers.
The three reasons: market changes often appear in non-customer groups
Du Lak said: "The initial signs of major changes are rarely manifestinalized to organize their own customers, and they are almost always expressed in non-customer groups. After all, non-customers are always more than customers. Du Luck As an example. In the peak period, the proportion of customers owned in the non-food retail market in the non-food retail market is 30%. Although the department store is very paying attention to the 30% of the customers, 70% of non-customers on the market. It is ignored, so that the change of the market trend is ignored. Ignore the needs of non-customer groups and their market trends. Customers are not God, the market is God. Only customer orientation is not enough, there is a strategic vision, to guide the market orientation from customers.
