Customer Centricity: Importance, Value, and Factors in E-Business

This essay delves into the critical role of customer centricity in the e-business landscape. It highlights the shift from a manufacturing-focused to a customer-centric approach, emphasizing the increased competition and customer empowerment brought about by globalization. The essay discusses the importance of customer centricity for attracting and retaining customers in the e-business sector, where switching costs are low, and customer expectations are high. It explores how customer centricity allows businesses to understand and cater to customer needs, creating value by offering products and services tailored to the most valuable customers. The essay also examines internal factors such as organizational culture and employee engagement, which are crucial for initiating and maintaining a customer-centric approach. Furthermore, it underlines the significance of customer relationship management in fostering strong customer relationships and gaining insights into customer preferences. The conclusion stresses the competitive nature of the e-business environment and the necessity of customer centricity for sustained success.

Running head: CUSTOMER CENTRICITY
Customer centricity
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Introduction
The current business scenario is much more customer centric compared to the business
process a few years ago. This is due to the reason that there was an era of manufacturing. This
refers to the selling of the goods being manufactured to the customers. They do not have the
options of selecting products according to their choices. However, after the global liberalization
and initiation of the globalization, competition got increased in the market. This led to the
increase in the options and bargaining power for the customers. This also led to the conversion of
the manufacturing era to the marketing era (Lamberti 2013). According to the concept of
marketing era, market research is being done in order to identify the need and requirements of
the customers and offering the products and services accordingly. This also led to the more
effective consideration and fulfillment of the need of the customers. In this essay, importance of
customer centricity discussed by Kindstrom and Kowalkowski (2014), creation of customer
value by customer centricity discussed by Bogers, Hadar and Bilberg (2016) and important
factors in initiating customer centricity stated by Bedarkar, Pandita, Agarwal and Saini (2016)
are being used.
Concept of the customer centricity also originated from this phenomenon and it helps the
business organizations to effectively determine the need of the customers and fulfill their need
properly. This essay will discuss about the importance of the customer centricity in aligning the
products and services along with the need and want of the customers in relation to the e-business.

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Discussion
Importance of customer centricity
It is well known that in the current business scenario, customer centricity is required to
attract more customers. According to Kindstrom and Kowalkowski (2014), customer centricity is
also effective and important for the e-business also. This is due to the reason that customer
centricity refers to the designing of the products and approach of the service according to the
wants and needs of the most valuable customers. On the other hand, e-business sector especially
the business to customer sector should have to be more customers centric. This is mainly due to
the reason that customers are having the options of comparing the content in the e-business with
other substitutes. Moreover, the switching cost for the customers in the e-business is also low or
negligible. Thus, it is more important for the organizations in the e-business to be more
customers centric and design their service and product portfolio according to the customer’s need
and wants.
For instance, Amazon is one of the major e-business organizations in the current business
sector. One of the major competitive advantages of them is the customer centricity. Amazon is
known for their updated products and frequent change of their products in their portal. These
changes are being made according to the feedback gained from the customers. Garnering the
feedback of the customers helps them to determine the requirement and expectation of the
customers and offering the products accordingly (Saarijarvi, Kannan and Kuusela 2013). This is
only possible due to the customer centric approach of Amazon.

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Creating value through customer centricity
Customer centricity is more important for the e-business organizations due to the reason
that in the current business scenario, the trend of the market and requirements of the customers
are rapidly changing. It is important for the contemporary business organizations to add more
value to the customers in order to stay ahead in the competition (Saarijarvi, Kannan and Kuusela
2013). The current business state of affairs for the organizations in the e-business sector is
intensely competitive with the presence of number of similar players in the market. Thus,
retention of the existing customers is as important as attracting more new customers for the e-
business organizations. In this case also, customer centricity plays an important role by providing
products and services according to the needs and wants of the most valuable customers.
According to Bogers, Hadar and Bilberg (2016), most valuable customers for the
organizations should be considered in determining their need and want. The authors also stated
that the most valuable customers should only be targeted due to the reason that they are the most
loyal customers to the company along with the major contributor of revenue for the e-business
organizations. In the case of the e-business organizations, it is more difficult to determine and
identify the level of loyalty for the customers. Thus, these organizations should only target the
most valuable customers and offer products according to their need and wants. According to the
authors, the approach of offering the products according to the need and want of the valuable
customers can only be initiated when the organization will be customer centric.
For instance, if the organization is having the approach of product centricity, then they
will not be able to determine the need and want of the customers; rather they will put strategies
in place to convince the customers to buy their products. These authors have also stated that

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there are various other ways that can be promoted by the e-business organizations to be a
customer centric organization. Offering products according to the need and want of the valuable
customers is not only the strategy of customer centricity, but offering added benefits such as
loyalty programs and effective customer service are also included in the approach of the
customer centricity.
Internal factors in initiating customer centricity
The above sections have discussed about the different elements that should be considered
in initiating the customer centric approach by the e-business organizations. However, apart from
these factors, there are various internal factors that also should be determined in order to have
customer centricity in place. According to Bedarkar, Pandita, Agarwal and Saini (2016),
organizational culture of the organization is one of the major factors in determining the customer
centricity. This is due to the reason that organizational culture should be designed keeping the
need and wants of the customers in consideration. According to the authors, organizational
culture of the e-business companies should have the approach of “customer first policy”. This
will enable the organizations to have their decision making process according to the need and
want of the customers. The authors have also stated that employee engagement program is
another key internal factor in determining the customer centricity of the organization. This is due
to the reason that initiating the customer centric approach should have motivated and engaged
employees in place. Motivated and engaged employees will only be able to provide effective
customer service and they are the only one who can gather the positive feedback from the
customers. Therefore, according to the authors, the more effective will be the employee
engagement strategies of the organization, the more efficient will be the customer centricity of
the organization.

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Relationship management in customer centricity
Initiation of the customer relationship management is also important for the business
organizations in having customer centric approach. This is due to the reason that having effective
relationship with the customers will helps the e-business organizations to determine the need and
want of the customers and offering products and services accordingly. According to Lamberti
(2013), e-business organizations should initiate customer relationship management in order to
build effective and positive relationship with the customers. This will help the organizations to
have the updated knowledge about need and want of the customers at any point of time. This will
also equip the e-business organizations to change their offerings according to the need and want
of the customers.
Conclusion
Thus, it can be concluded that customer centricity is not only determining the need and
want of the most valuable customers and offering products and services accordingly, but also
involved various other internal and external factors. This essay discussed about these internal and
external factors, which should be considered by the e-business organizations in having customer
centric approach. This essay also concludes that e-business scenario in the present time is highly
competitive in nature and thus, it is important for the organizations operating in this sector to
have customer centric approach to stay ahead in the competition. Effective determination of the
external and internal factors of customer centricity will help the e-business organizations to have
customer centric approach.

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Reference
Bedarkar, M., Pandita, D., Agarwal, R. and Saini, R., 2016. Examining the impact of
organizational culture on customer centricity in organizations: An analysis. Prabandhan: Indian
Journal of Management, 9(2), pp.19-28.
Bogers, M., Hadar, R. and Bilberg, A., 2016. Additive manufacturing for consumer-centric
business models: Implications for supply chains in consumer goods
manufacturing. Technological Forecasting and Social Change, 102, pp.225-239.
Kindström, D., & Kowalkowski, C. (2014). Service innovation in product-centric firms: A
multidimensional business model perspective. Journal of Business & Industrial
Marketing, 29(2), 96-111.
Lamberti, L., 2013. Customer centricity: the construct and the operational antecedents. Journal
of Strategic marketing, 21(7), pp.588-612.
Saarijärvi, H., Kannan, P.K. and Kuusela, H., 2013. Value co-creation: theoretical approaches
and practical implications. European Business Review, 25(1), pp.6-19.