ABSTRACT
Organizations invest heavily in research to determine what consumers think about their products and services and how they are perceived compared to their competition. In the business-to-business environment, however, more often than not, organizations are confident that they know to what degree their customers are satisfied and feel that they understand their customers’ needs better than their customers understand them themselves. This becomes even more complicated when it is a business-to-business-to-consumer relationship. Unfortunately, many times an organization’s business customer informs it of his or her dissatisfaction by not renewing a contract. Research demonstrates that the way to sustain relationships with current customers is to create a passionate customer-centric environment where everyone in the organization, including value delivery network partners, has a “buy-in” and demonstrates this attitude on a continuing basis. These efforts also need to be measured, reinforced, and continuously improved upon as everyone in the value chain adjusts to their respective environmental dynamics. This customer-centric approach must also be tempered by the fact that strong relationships are built on trust. Trust cannot be mandated but, instead, must be built over time. Therefore, either party may not readily see the results of this approach in the short term, which means that one must proceed knowing that, if done right, a trusting relationship will form over time. Thus, customer relationship management (CRM) and partner relationship management (PRM) strategies are key methodologies that, if adopted, can help a company not only sustain and grow profits with existing business customers but also serve as input to acquisition strategy formulation.
