“To satisfy the customer is the mission and purpose of every business.”
-Management guru Peter Drucker
But for decades the gap between big companies and the customers who bought their products and services has grown only wider. The customer might be king, but his crown slipped.
Now, technologies and practices are emerging that give firms an opportunity to rebuild an intimate sense of connection with customers—to know them as though they were running a corner store. Yet those same technologies—social media, cloud computing and the “Internet of things”—have empowered customers, too. They can share their brand disappointments and their stories of service that is subpar with consummate ease. Likewise, they are able and willing to tell their friends and family about companies that have made them go “wow.”
This is the customer-led economy, an emerging world of bewildering strategic options. To understand how companies are adapting, The Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU), sponsored by salesforce.com, conducted a global survey of business executives and interviewed leading firms.
