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The Differences Between Customer-led and Market-oriented Companies
Stefka Nenkova, Student (University), Netherlands
The concepts "customer focus" and "market orientated" are often discussed and presented in different companies’ mission statements. It is important to know that there are significant differences between these two customer orientations. Slater and Narver (1998) have made a point on that matter, while also trying to point out the conditions under which both strategies may be successful as well as possible problems they may lead to. Below I share a summary of their findings.
THE CUSTOMER-LED BUSINESS
- Focuses on understanding the expressed needs of the customers and finding ways to satisfy those needs
- May develop close relationship with major clients
- Is reactive and short-term in focus
- Leads to adaptive learning, which hides the danger of limiting the manager’s view to the one of their current customers’ eyes
- Hampers innovation with its focus only on current rather than the potential needs of the customers
- Needs a valid measure of customer satisfaction, which is often difficult to find
- May discourage the risk-taking in product and process development
- Is appropriate for relatively stable environment.
THE MARKET-ORIENTED BUSINESS
- Focuses on both expressed and latent customer needs
- Tries to understand and predict their competitors’ capabilities and plans by acquiring and evaluating market information systematically
- Facilitates knowledge sharing throughout the whole organization
- Is proactive and long-term oriented
- Leads to generative learning, observing in context
- Works closely with lead users, or “customers, or potential customers, who have needs that are advanced compared to other market members and who expect to benefit significantly from a solution to those needs”
- Has strong leadership
- Searches for unserved or potential markets
- Is not a marketing orientation
- is appropriate for turbulent environment.
KEY DIFFERENCES BETWEEN MARKET-ORIENTED CUSTOMER-LED (Slater and Narver, 1998)
| |
Customer-led |
Market-oriented |
| Strategic orientation |
Expressed wants |
Latent needs |
| Adjustment style |
Responsive |
Proactive |
| Temporal focus |
Short-term |
Long-term |
| Objective |
Customer satisfaction |
Customer value |
| Learning type |
Adaptive |
Generative |
| Learning processes |
Customer surveys |
Customer observation |
| |
Key account relationships |
Lead-user relationships |
| |
Focus groups |
Continuous experimentation |
| |
Concept testing |
Selective partnering |
Based on those ideas Slater and Narver (1998) argue that a market orientation is much more probable as a source of competitive advantage than a customer-led orientation.
Source:
Slater, S. F. and Narver, J. C. (1998) “Customer-Led and Market-Oriented: Let's Not Confuse the Two”, Strategic Management Journal, Vol. 19, No. 10 (Oct., 1998), pp. 1001-1006.
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