Capstone Academic Skills

The Positive Impact of Customer Focus on Financial
Results




Zuyd University of Applied Sciences
Faculty of International Business
Maastricht, June 10, 2018
Name
Marketing
Study: Premaster program
Lecturer: Mr Bertrand and Mrs Hobson
Writing Assignment: Capstone Paper
Word Count: 4566


Table of Content

,Marketing Relevance..................................................................................................................4
Measuring Marketing Performance.........................................................................................4
The Balance of Value Creation and Value Appropriation......................................................6
A Customer-focused Approach...................................................................................................7
The Contribution of Customer Focus on Effective Value Chain Management......................8
The Contribution of Customer Focus on Financial Results..................................................10
How to Build a Strong Customer Focus................................................................................13
Discussion & Conclusion..........................................................................................................15
References.................................................................................................................................18
Appendices................................................................................................................................20
Appendix A...........................................................................................................................20
Appendix B............................................................................................................................20




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, Introduction

Customer focus is one of the key drivers of business success. Another important

business focus is a long term financial viability (Bleuel & Stanley, 2007). Does a company

achieve better financial results when it builds a customer-focused culture?

As today’s world is becoming more globally and digitally involved, customers have

higher expectations, prefer more choices, and are less brand loyal (Best, 2012). In the long

run, the survival of every business is at risk. The only constant is change, as customers,

competition and the environment will continue to change (Best, 2012). Businesses with a

customer-focused approach are in sync with customers’ needs, changing environmental

conditions, competitors’ strategies and arising technologies (Best, 2012). As a result,

businesses are becoming increasingly digitally remote and person-to-person contact is

becoming limited. As communication is multi-directional, from brand to consumer, consumer

to brand, and consumer to consumer, businesses should embrace the social consumer (Stokes,

2014).

Strong customer-focused businesses exceed their competition over the long term by

being consistent in the delivery of high customer satisfaction, as well as realizing higher

profits over the short term (Rust et al., 2012). Businesses with a focus on customers create

higher customer value. Additionally, customer loyalty is used to create greater profits and

higher shareholder value within these companies (Best, 2012).

Although there still seems to be some reluctance within businesses to embrace a

customer-focused approach (Bleuel & Stanley, 2007), this paper demonstrates that a

customer-focused approach has a positive effect on the financial results of businesses.

Significant evidence shows that a customer-focused strategy does have financial benefits

(Bleuel & Stanley, 2007). If firms take their eyes off consumer satisfaction, these firms will

suffer not only in the market place, but also financially (Bleuel & Stanley, 2007).


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