Leading by listening Practically every success story in today’s corporate realm reflects how awareness of customer needs shapes competitive business strategy. Let’s look at some examples.
Procter & Gamble When P&G, the largest consumer goods company in the world, chose to offer its products to the lower income customer in developing countries, it had research teams associating with the poorest of homes for weeks. This gave the company valuable insights, which aided the company in creating a range of products that suited the pockets of this segment, enabling it to gain substantial market share.
Amazon.com
Amazon.com, the first e-retailer of books in the world, attained competitive advantage by emerging as book lovers’ forum where they could also share knowledge. It maintains customer knowledge through services such as book reviews, access to order histories and product recommendations based on preceding orders. Consequently, Amazon has recorded more than 70% repeat orders