Valerie Mathieu - A Customer-oriented Manager for B2B Services

The aim of the book is to provide managers with the skills that will enable them to launch customer orientation in their area. More precisely, the objective is to provide managers with the knowledge and tools necessary to implement this customer orientation by themselves, while involving their extended team. With this in mind, the book develops a structuring approach in four steps: Understanding the fundamentals of customer orientation in B2B services (Part 1), Knowing the customer (Part 2), Making the most of the offer (Part 3) and Delivering the service (Part 4).

While this new managerial skill may seem burdensome at first, both in its acquisition and implementation, the resulting benefits should encourage the manager to go beyond this apparent difficulty of the task. Managers will benefit in three ways: as collaborators, they will be recognized for having implemented a strategic intention and vision; as leaders, by consolidating the performance of their perimeter, their legitimacy will be reinforced and as a person, the pleasure of building a relationship of trust with their clients and their extended team will give their actions the meaning so often sought after.

This book is not about management, but for managers, whether they are active or aspiring. Regardless of the size and stakes of their perimeter, whether they are accompanied by functional teams or in autonomy and whether they are employees or entrepreneurs, managers will be able to easily adapt the roadmap proposed here to their specific context. Engineering students, most of whom will sooner or later be called upon to take on managerial responsibilities, will be made aware of this customer orientation issue as soon as they start their studies. Finally, and more broadly, students in management schools will find in the book a complement to their courses in management and marketing of services, which are increasingly common in training, as well as to courses dedicated to B2B, which are rarer. In view of the numerous internships and work-study programs offered to these students by B2B service providers, this supplement should enable them to more quickly grasp the specificities of their missions.

November 2021

1 1 www.businessroundtable.org/business-roundtable-redefines-the-purpose-of-a-corporation-to-promote-an-economy-that-serves-all-americans.

2 2 Laurence Fink, CEO of Blackrock, the world’s largest asset manager, in his January 2019 annual letter asked business leaders to think about their purpose and get involved in societal issues. www.businessinsider.fr/us/larry-finks-annual-letter-2019-1-2019.

3 3 B2B stands for business-to-business, that is, a service offered to a private or public company or to a professional, as opposed to B2C, business-to-customer, a service offered to consumers.

4 4 www.insee.fr/fr/statistiques/4255850?sommaire=4256020.

This first part presents the three fields at the intersection of which this book is positioned: customer orientation, service and B2B.

Customer orientation is debated in a dense literature that focuses on defining and justifying its benefits and also questions how it can be implemented in the company. This customer orientation is a direct result of the marketing culture. Translated into a managerial skill, customer orientation allows for the diffusion of a marketing culture within the organization as a whole.

The interest in the service sector in particular is justified by its economic weight and also indicates the need for a specific approach in order to implement customer orientation in a relevant and effective way. It is, thus, necessary to understand the reality, the stakes and the specificities of the service sector in order to introduce an adapted customer orientation.

As for the focus on B2B, it implies a significant distinction between B2B and B2C in terms of customer orientation. One often resorts to endless lists to justify what distinguishes B2B from B2C. Two specificities are in fact essential to understand, the first one is related to the market and the second one to the relationship. While the first one, involving the notions of channel and derived demand, is specific and exclusive to B2B markets, the second one, which defends the importance of the relationship between customers and their providers, is also at the heart of B2C. Nevertheless, the B2B relationship, because of its strength, depth and duration, is becoming a major managerial challenge.

Customer orientation is an old hand in the young management literature. The concept appeared a little more than 30 years ago 1 and has been attracting the attention of researchers, consultants and managers ever since.

The notion of market orientation was first proposed in the academic literature, whereas a more managerial literature would later more easily refer to the term customer orientation. Market orientation has historically been defined on the basis of three pillars: customer focus, broad involvement of different departments in the company and profitability (Kohli and Jaworski 1990, p. 3).

Here the preferred term “customer orientation” seems to be more anchored in reality and pragmatic. While the invisible hand of the market does not need to be tightened, on the other hand, many customers will judge one by one’s handshake! Nevertheless, a full and true customer orientation must also integrate competitive issues and more broadly a set of stakeholders that will be presented throughout the book.

The literature on customer orientation has been built around two approaches that are more complementary than truly opposed: the cultural approach and the behavioral approach. The cultural approach speaks of a state of mind, values, beliefs and attitudes, rituals and even a philosophy, centered on the customer in order to create maximum satisfaction and achieve the ultimate goal of long-term profitability 2. The behavioral approach is more operational and focuses on understanding the conditions for implementing this orientation. It questions the organizational behaviors to be implemented, the organizational and managerial structure to be put in place and the actions to be taken to make this orientation effective 3. More specifically, we are looking at the conditions that will enable the organization to understand the market, to anticipate its changes and to respond favorably. Information is at the heart of this behavioral approach: the collection of information, its dissemination and its translation into strategies, decisions and actions.

Today, we find these two questions in the company: how to spread an actual customer culture within the organization and also how to implement strategies, actions and behaviors that are truly customer oriented.

Customer orientation is an investment for the company. Specific resources will be mobilized to implement this new orientation. Disseminating a strong culture within the company, listening to the customer, collecting and analyzing information, relaying it and building offers that take this information into account are all direct or indirect investments for the company. The question of return on investment is legitimate. Does customer orientation have a positive impact on the company’s performance? Will this investment in customer orientation really be profitable? Will it allow the company to really build a sustainable competitive advantage? Will it be a means of differentiation from the competition? These are all questions that can be asked at the overall level of the company to validate a customer orientation, as well as for managers who wish to implement this orientation in their area.