articles > Customer And Market Strategy
Earning a Return on Your “Relationship Fund”
The case study that follows started off a number of years ago with a quite troubling message delivered by a major customer to a key supplier from the instruments industry. An executive in the instruments firm summarized the message that he heard from this customer as follows: “I was summoned in for a meeting with Read the rest…
Three Cs of GAM
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Where’s The Beef?
Many years ago, in a course on information theory, I learned that one way to measure the value of information was by quantifying the quality of relevant decisions made with and without it. A few case studies suggested that the concept, while clear from a common sense perspective, was hard to apply in practice. But Read the rest…
If Speaking Is Silver, Then Listening Is Gold
A recent project provided an opportunity to examine the relationships between a machinery manufacturer and the dealer network through which they went to market. The project was motivated by an executive in the manufacturing firm who observed that “Relationships with our dealers are getting out of sync. More and more frequently, there are issues that are getting Read the rest…
Finding New Pathways To Profitable Growth
Synopsis: Identification of the most promising new markets, customer segments, and product and service offerings is critical to sustained profitable growth. The Opportunity-Fit Methodology described in this paper provides a convenient way for business-to-business corporations to compare and select from among the numerous and widely-diverse growth options that are candidates for investment funding. This methodology Read the rest…
Co-Destiny: Overcome Growth Challenges—Yours and Your Customers
So, do your training teams and their business consultants know how to solve a service paradox? If not, they will not be successful with their bottom line, or their clients—not a smart move in this time of corporate and consumer financial conservatism. Business consultants and global strategy experts Atlee Valentine Pope and George F. Brown, Read the rest…
Turn Your Customer Into A Partner
Most companies invest a significant level of resources in activities designed to identify business partners and secure a relationship with them. Sales leaders typically identify the strategic targets that they want to win over in each year’s annual plan. Strategic sourcing leaders place a critical importance on finding those suppliers that can make a difference Read the rest…
They Only Had One Pig
During a recent discussion, a customer of one of my clients described an episode of the popular television series House in response to a question that I had asked. In that episode, Drs. House and Wilson had made a bet as to which could hide a chicken in the hospital for the longest time without Read the rest…
Know Who Your Friends Are
If you treat your customers as your friends and help them grow their business, you will benefit from their success, says George F. Brown Jr. In 1970, Walt Kelly had his famous comic strip character Pogo use the phrase “We have met the enemy and he is us” in an Earth Day poster. Since then, Read the rest…
Stand By Me
Recently, I participated in a conference attended primarily by technology integrators, firms that provided high-end solutions to complex challenges faced by their customers in business and government. Their firms were staffed by experienced professionals skilled in networking, software, and various applications, and the customers they served were mostly Fortune 1000 businesses and similarly-sized government agencies Read the rest…
My Customer’s Competitor Is My…
An Arabian proverb says, “The enemy of my enemy is my friend.” While the logic is straightforward, these days firms in market after market often ponder a revised version of the saying, as in our article’s title. This is a much more difficult question to answer. Companies are increasingly asked to become suppliers to their Read the rest…
Known Unknowns And Unknown Unknowns
A client in the medical equipment industry recently shared the following experience with me: “You might remember about a decade ago the media having a great time with Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld when he made the comment about ‘known knowns, known unknowns, and unknown unknowns’. It’s probably true that politicians have to be careful when Read the rest…
Going “All In” With Your Supply Chain
Rather than just pushing all of the chips to the middle of the table, the change in the relationship should be managed in a way that motivates the best contributions of these strategic suppliers, asking far more of them than just security of supply. The business implication of the earthquake and tsunami in Japan was Read the rest…
CoDestiny Relationships With Government
America’s governmental institutions face many more changes in the years to come. A major part of the motivation for change is economics, with governments at Federal, state, and local levels facing increasing pressure to find new efficiencies and bring spending into line with reasonable levels of taxation. After today’s near-term budget crises are addressed and Read the rest…
CoDestiny Relationships With Channel Partners
CoDestiny[1] relationships come in many flavors. The most frequent ones involve suppliers and their end customers. In some cases, such suppliers provide ingredients to the end customer’s product. In other cases, they provide complementary products like packaging and advertising. In still other cases, they provide infrastructure, ranging from machinery on the factory floor to various Read the rest…
Troubled Waters
In today’s business environment, where every firm has to focus intensely on the ways in which they can achieve a cost structure that is acceptable to their own customers, tremendous strains can emerge between suppliers and customers, even ones that have had a long history of shared successes. It takes a significant effort on the Read the rest…
Taking Action to Sustain Customer Relationships
Strong customer relationships can yield rewards for both of the companies involved. Learn more in this article.. Most companies invest a significant level of resources in activities designed to identify business partners and secure a relationship with them. Sales leaders typically identify the strategic targets that they want to win over in each year’s annual Read the rest…
Who Would Ever Share Customers?
Many organizations live in fear of the notion of sharing end customers. After all, a manufacturer might try to swoop in and sell directly, cutting out the distributor. And a distributor always can bring in new manufacturers to supply products. But if both parties learn which relationships are serviced best by which type of organization, Read the rest…
Atlee Valentine Pope on Choosing Customers Wisely
How to move forward in the new year by learning from avoidable mistakes As we begin to climb slowly out of the deepest, darkest recession on recent record, it’s normal to want to simply get up, wipe the dirt off our knees and move blithely ahead. For the most part, this is a common reaction Read the rest…
Listening To The Voice Of The Customer
Effective programs such as Voice of the Customer (VOC) can make a major contribution to your success. Learn more in this article by George F. Brown, Jr.. In the book CoDestiny, it is argued that the most successful business strategies are ones that build upon shared successes. If your strategy creates value for your customers, Read the rest…
Opinion: Can This Marriage Be Saved?
This Opinion piece appears in the Aug. 1 print edition of Transport Topics. Click here to subscribe today. It takes a significant effort on the part of suppliers and customers alike to ensure that strains on key supplier-customer relationships are avoided, and there is a common focus on the contributions that create value. The logistics industry Read the rest…
Be A Good Customer–And Let Your Suppliers Help You Grow
Most firms have learned that their customers can be a valuable source of insight, providing ideas as to how they can create and capture value. Fewer firms, however, have learned that similar contributions can come from their suppliers. In today’s challenging business environment, tapping every available source of information can be a factor that sets top-performing firms Read the rest…
Avoiding Distress in Key Business Relationships
It takes a significant effort on the part of supplier companies as well as their customers to ensure that strains on key supplier-customer relationships are avoided, and that there is a common focus on each one’s value-creating contributions. If your firm is involved in a “CoDestiny” relationship — one that has yielded value through shared Read the rest…
