"THE QUEST FOR COSTOMER FOCUS"

           "If you focus on your Customer they will take care of your business success."

A Customer is the most important visitor,on business premises.He is not dependent on one business to satisfy his needs or wants,rather in today's world businesses are dependent on customers.He is not an interruption on work,he is the purpose of it.He is not the outsider to the business,he is part of it.Businessmen are not doing him a favor by serving him,even he is doing a favor on them by giving the opportunity to do it.

It takes months to find a Customer and only seconds to lose one.Thus Customer focus is the process of determining customer needs and wants in order to drive the working force behind the company's products or services.In today's scenario Managers in the company must determine key factors about its customers in order to steer its marketing approach.Have you ever wondered how companies decide on how they will reach their consumer target market? Well in my view first they have to determine the demographics of their customers.Who are the consumers? What is their age group? Where do they shop? How do they communicate? Where do they receive their information?Managers identify their target market and create strategies in order to reach those customers.

The example of Customer focus is" Amazon",it is perhaps the most crowded UI on the planet.However no one has done more to bring the power of the community into the grand bazaar of retailing.The first to bring recommendation actively into site,they also bought "review helpfulness".They display not just the rating butth distribution of them.They tell you what the people did with the information as well-did they purchase the item or view other item?They try,pilot and rolloutnew ways to engage,often elevating hte experiencein ways that benefits the customers.

The article "the quest for customer focus" tells that in order to have a progressive development its not just a matter of installing a better CRM system or increase customer satisfaction level,customer focus is very important parameter to focus on. For any company knowing their customer is the prior task or else any big giant could go into dump yard.for example,continental airlines was emerging from bankruptcy because of the lack of customer focus orientation.

In the article, "the quest for customer focus taken from Haward Business Review,author has mentioned about some steps or path that every company should go with.Step -1 is Communal Coordination which covers the part in which a company collects the information about its customer and then organize the information taken from them.step two is the serial coordination in which a company gains  insight into customers from past behavior.companies go beyond just by assembling customer information to drawing influences from it. 

They analyse the information and then pass along their results to users in the business unit,who identify how best to apply it in marketing efforts,building on their knowledge of the local markets.stage three includes symbiotic coordination in which developing an understanding of likely future behavior is done. In this stage company shifts from an analysis of past customer interactions to anticipating,and even shaping the future. And the fourth part is integral coordination which simply is the integral part of all three above parts or stages. Hence these four stages will map a good strategy in which customers are in the limelight. Knowing the customer in a better way.

Saloni Chhabra

SBU-"Strategic Business Units"

For decades of upgrading and improving Marketing Management Research several theories and strategic approaches are being used by business scholars and practitioners to improve the performance of the business being represented.  

As the congestion of business organizations both SME’s and MNC’s around the world are obviously increasing today, revising and innovating marketing structure approaches is needed to meet the demand for each market unique behavior towards the company.  As I study the nature of SBU marketing approach, particular market behavior can be observed and be given concern fitted to the market environment and the direct consumer. 

A Strategic Business Unit is a fully functional and distinct unit of a business that develops its own strategic vision and direction. Within large companies, there are several smaller specialized divisions that work towards specific projects and goals, and we see this organizational setup frequently in global companies. The strategic business unit, often referred to as an SBU, remains an important component of the company and must report back through headquarters about their operational status. Typically, they will operate as an independent organization with a specific focus on target markets and are large enough to maintain internal divisions such as finance, HR, and so forth.

There are many great examples of SBUs that  can relate to. For instance, General Electric has 49 SBUs in such markets as appliances, aerospace, electronics, and so on. LG operates along the same lines, with SBUs competing in electronics and appliances,like It makes refrigerators, washing machines, air-conditioners as well as televisions. These small units are formed as separate SBUs so that revenues, costs as well as profits can be tracked independently. Once a unit is given an SBU status, it can make its own decisions, investments, budgets etc. It will be quick to react when the product market takes a shift or changes start happening before the shift happens.

Another example of SBU is Nestle.Nestle is one of the world's largest food company and has successfully grown and increased its market share since its foundation in 1866. This already indicates that Nestlé's overall strategic posture makes sense given the markets and countries Nestle participates in.Nestle is organized into seven different worldwide strategic business units (SBUs). These have responsibility for high-level strategic decisions and engage in overall strategic business development, including acquisitions and market entry strategy. Parallel to this structure, there is a regional organization that divides the world into five major geographical zones, such as Europe, North America, etc. The regional organizations are responsible for developing regional strategies and assist in the overall strategy development process. However, neither SBU nor regional managers get involved in local operating decisions.It has four different strategic units. One SBU like Maggi deals in Food products, another deals in Dairy products like Nestle milkmaid, the third SBU deals in Chocolate products like Kitkat so on and so forth. Thus, in the above example, it is very simple to change strategy for each business unit because the strategy for each is independent of the other.

Saloni Chhabra

Member of Savior Faire Marketers