Toward a Customer-Centric Strategy Implementation Model: The Case of a European Mid-Sized Glass-Packaging Producer

Background

More than a decade ago, Sheth, Sisodia and Sharma (2000) predicted that problems with marketing productivity, market/customer diversity and technology development should increasingly lead toward the individualization of marketing practices. The idea of focusing marketing efforts toward even narrower segments “logically” leads to the idea of “one-to-one” marketing (Peppers & Rogers, 1999). Customization to the extent of individual customer needs, referred to as “customerization” (Wind & Rangaswamy, 2001) is enabled by the development of flexible/modular engineering and manufacturing (for producing different product options) and e-business (for customizing other aspects of marketing, such as price, distribution channels, and promotion). Although such a process extends from the organization’s research and development practices (Selden & McMillan, 2006), the essential “ingredient” of this process is related to customer involvement in the development of the product/service, as well as the entire marketing offer. This form of interaction, referred to as “customer co-creation” (Prahalad & Ramaswamy, 2004) may be identified as one of the cornerstones of the customer-centric strategy/customerization.