CUSTOMER ACCOUNT DECISION MAKING PROCESS

The assignment content discusses a customer's decision-making process for buying antivirus and security solutions. It analyzes the buying practices of customers, including the decision making unit (DMU) of ABC Pvt Ltd, which consists of the managing director, line manager, procurement manager, employees, and designated personnel. The report also covers customer support issues, business value, and plans to maintain information about customers. Additionally, it evaluates the organization's ability to respond quickly and efficiently to customer demands, creates a process to measure customer attractiveness, and identifies ways to influence the criteria used by the DMU.

CUSTOMER ACCOUNT
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Buying decision making
unit of ABC Pvt LTD
Deciders
Managing
Director of
ABC Pvt
LTD
Influencer
Line manager of ABC
Pvt LTD
Initiators
The procurement manager
of ABC Pvt LTD
End-Users
Employees of
ABC Pvt LTD
Buyer
Designated
personnel of The
procurement
team
Introduction:
The decision making process of a customer is a complex act which is influenced by several
factors. However, a clear understanding on the customers’ decision making process helps an
organization to realize the actual needs of their clients. As a result, they can redesign their
offerings in such way so that the products and services easily meet the needs, which in turn, keep
the organization in a more favorable position in the market in respect to its competitors. Here, the
customers accounts of a tech start-up, which provide antivirus and other security solutions to
individual and the business-clients, are analyzed. The report mainly includes discussion on the
buying processes of customers, customer support issues and the business value. The customer
procurement issues and process to plan customer accounts are also discussed in this report.
Task 1: Understanding buying practices of customers
A purchase can be considered as a combined decision of several individuals who together forms
the decision making unit (). In this report, the DMU of ABC Pvt LTD, one of the major business
clients of th current tech start-up, is created and analyzed. A DMU consists of several individuals
including the decision makers, initiators, end users, influencers and buyers.
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The personal needs of the persons and the decision making process: The DMU of ABC PVT
LTD consists of its decider or the managing director , end-users or the employees, initiators or
the procurement management, the influencer or the line manager and the buyers or the
designated personnel of its procurement team. The decider or the managing director of the ABC
PVT LTD was looking for a customized antivirus for the organization. However, she involved
other individuals from the organization, too, for making the decision.
The line manager is responsible for carrying out the day to day activities and therefore, can
easily identify the vulnerable areas that can be risky for the organization (). In this case, she
acted as the influencer, identified what ABC needs, compared among the available solutions in
the market and selected the current security solution provider.
The security solution was used the employees who are the end users and therefore gave their
input while making the decision. They required a solution that is simple to use and will not
require much time to scan and remove malicious files from their system. The need of employees
played a significant role in the line manger’s choice. The buying process was carried out by the
procurement team. They needed a product which is cost effective. The procurement manager was
the initiator as she started the purchasing process and the payments were made by the designated
personnel of the procurement team.
Factors to establish preferred supplier situation and Use of quality measures: Ease and
effectiveness of virus scanning is the first and the foremost thing that the buyers check before
buying an antivirus
(). In this case also the influencer assessed such capabilities of her chosen solution. Additionally,
the features like auto-updates, huge database of malwares and the protection against ransomware
also made the solution investment worthy. Additionally, the current security solution provider
was also chosen because of its ability to deliver faster services, reputation in the market,
reasonable cost, and capability to provide tailored solution.
Task 2: Understanding customer support issues
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My organization offers customized antivirus, security assessment services, enterprise network
security services, data center security services and special protection against ransomware to
individual clients and small and medium business organizations. Among these, here the customer
support issues associated with customized antivirus are discussed.
Development process and reason to develop the product: The incidents related to cyber security
attacks are increasing day by day. Not only are the large organizations, the small and medium
ones, too, also encountering these problems every day. However, the security risks are different
for each organization and so, a standard solution cannot ensure the maximum security for these
organizations. Therefore, to meet the requirements of every single client, the antivirus was
developed which can meet the specific needs.
Customers’ input to the process: Each business has different vulnerable areas which need to be
handled with security solutions. The analysis on the cyber security market indicates that the
customers were not satisfied with the performance of existing standard solutions and were
looking for a tailored solution. The increasing demand of customers to handle their different risk
issues compelled the organization to develop the customized solution.
Technical and support sources: The organization were already providing security solutions to
their clients. So, it not much technical resource was employed by the organization. However, the
new antivirus was completely different from the previous versions. Therefore, huge amount of
support resources were utilized while developing the new product. While offering the new
product, the customers were provided with detailed description on how the new anti-virus will be
used. In addition, while developing the anti-virus the customers were involved a lot so that their
needs can be identified accurately.
Process to add value to the customer: The new anti-virus was more valuable to the customers
than their previous counter-parts. The previous security solutions provided by the organization
used to meet some general security issues only whereas the new solution was able to meet every
security risks faced by the them. As the antivirus was customizable, users can tailor it later also
in case, the business needs change anyway.
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Quantifying the value
Steps taken by consumers to add extra value: The organization took several steps to add value
to their customers. At first, the organization conducted survey among customers to understand
their needs. In addition to it, the organization also analyzed the market to get an idea on the
demand of customized security solutions. The opinions of security experts were also sought to
understand whether development of the customized security solution would be profitable for the
organization. All these analyses helped the organization to understand exactly what changes
should be made to their product.
To add value to the customers, the production process was also changed . In the new
manufacturing process, the input provided by customers was treated with great importance. It
also helped the organization to understand the specific security issues faced by their clients and
provide them with necessary solutions.
Task 3 – Understanding your own business value
Plan to customer support:
Also, critically evaluate and quantify (using an evaluative scale eg 1 – 10), your
organisation’s ability to respond quickly, efficiently and in good manner to these customer
demands. Give actual examples to support your argument.
Task 4 – Preparing for customer procurement
Creating and maintaining information about customers:
Maintaining information for the industry sector:
Process to measure customer attractiveness: CAF
Type of information involved:
Type of contracts available for the customer:
Are they special contracts or standard contracts? Evaluate your own organisation’s
standard contracts.
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Ways to influence the criteria used by the customer DMU:
Ways to achieve preferred supplier status:
Identifying the competitors:
Difference among the organization and its competitors: RSF
Task 5 – Using information to plan customer accounts
Information from the existing account with other prospects:
Carrying out the prospect:
Where might such prospecting be carried out and how might this prospecting be
conducted?
Frequency of updating the account:
Level of satisfaction of the updating account:
New account development plan:
Linking New account to current account management:
Conclusion:
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