Customer centricity, key to business success

An Ernst & Young report notes that companies will improve their growth and profitability in the short term by adopting customer-focused innovation strategies.

Technology is growing at an exponential rate and influencing consumer behavior and marketing strategies. By 2020, it is estimated that 80% of the world’s population will have access to mobile telephony; more than 50,000 million devices will be connected, but the smartphone will be the preferred device for users to access the Internet. Along with this, social media and unprecedented access to information, services, product reviews, etc., is creating a new generation of increasingly informed and demanding customers. All this requires strategies focused on providing the best possible customer experience as a key to business growth.

Keys to redefining customer relations

In this rapidly changing environment for digital companies, a new set of principles is the key to redefining business-customer relationships and transforming business models into customer-centric strategies. According to the report “The Journey Toward Greater Customer Centricity”, prepared by the firm of strategic analysis Ernst & Young, these key principles are the following:

• Protect business from intermediaries. Companies must ensure that they have a strong influence on their customers’ perception of their products and services as the only way to get to know their customers and respond to their needs and preferences efficiently.

• Use information and knowledge as a competitive advantage. Attention must be taken from the product to the customer, that is, a better understanding of the true needs of customers in order to redefine the products and services offered to them and the ways in which they interact with them.

• Increased productivity as a competitive advantage. Those companies that are able to increase productivity through streamlined business processes and technological improvements will be able to improve their expenses and increase the quality of their customer service.

• Diversification of sources of income to ensure stability in growth and income generation, which also affects customer relationships, as customer needs and product performance fluctuate on the basis of own conditions of the market and society.

• Identify and manage strategic business partnerships. The adoption of new technologies facilitates the subcontracting of non-strategic functions that facilitate efficiency and effectiveness throughout the value chain.

Focusing on these five key principles, Ernst & Young points out that companies can improve their growth and profitability in the short term as long as they adopt and integrate the concept of innovation into their organizations. According to the report, “Future industry leaders will be agile and able to respond quickly and efficiently to changing market conditions, new consumer demands and new regulations.”