Meeting the business needs
will be giving customers competitive advantage, that is, compared to other of your customers. Can you therefore do it for all? Is there any point? Would the customer let you?
Remember the chain Chapter 3 introduced the idea of the market chain, taking account of suppliers’ suppliers and customers’ customers, right through to the endconsumer. As your sales offer moves towards solutions and beyond, the significance of the chain will increase. From the example in Chapter 3, an agrochemical supplier, it was at the supermarket/ consumer interface that most market noise was generated and solutions for farmers must take account of that noise. Don’t be surprised if customers start looking back up the chain, beyond you, for solutions. Rather than being surprised, anticipate it and act in concert with them.
A major UK supermarket was concerned that stocking major brand food products did nothing for their competitive advantage – everyone else had them. They tried to get suppliers to offer variants, but failed. Their next move was to approach their supplier’s suppliers, manufacturers of additives and flavours, asking them to create unique products that would only be used in that supermarket chain’s products, but sold through the food manufacturers for use in their brands. The supermarket people were not asking for their own label: they wanted their own versions of branded products and this was the only way they could see to get them. Everyone was uncomfortable about this – the additive supplier feared upsetting their customer, the food manufacturer felt squeezed and the retailer remained frustrated. Moral of the story? If there are solutions to be found in the chain then suppliers and customers need to act in concert to find them.
The tale of the frustrated customer
THE CUSTOMER’S TOTAL BUSINESS EXPERIENCE In the bad old days, sometimes we would tell our customers what they needed and sometimes we were lucky and we got it right. Then, sometimes wasn’t enough and we realized that we had to learn to ask – and some of us are still learning. But now we hit on some problems:
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What if our customers don’t know what they need? What if things are changing around them so fast that they can’t see a clear way forward?
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