ABSTRACT
Customer-driven organisations focus on understanding customers and delivering customer-focused solutions. While the concept of being customer-driven is acknowledged to be a significant means of attaining a sustainable competitive advantage, limited knowledge and understanding of what constitutes a customer-driven approach, or even how to implement the concept has, over the years, limited its use. This chapter, therefore, comprehensively explores and integrates extant literature and identifies the major characteristics of customer-driven firms and the benefits as well as the criticisms associated with being customer-driven. Based on the literature reviewed, some recommendations on how businesses in Africa can benefit from adopting a customer orientation are proposed at the end of the chapter.
