ABSTRACT
Customer orientation subscribes to the philosophy of David Packard that marketing is too important to be left to the marketing department. Executives use terms such as customer- centric/driven/focused/oriented and so forth to motivate their people to do a better job relating and responding to customers. Many healthcare organizations, however, are slow adopters in creating superior value for customers. A market orientation builds the necessary business culture and customer-focused framework to enable service providers to deliver superior value to their target markets. This is accomplished by being market-driven and market-driving. Co-creation of value can lower costs and improve the overall service experience. Lean management principles originated around 1990 at Toyota, and have been widely used by progressive manufacturers around the world. The application of a customer obsession, bias for action, corporate entrepreneurship, customer and employee value propositions, Lean practices and a co-creation of value perspective can yield positive results to the organization.
