Increase in Customer Influence on Businesses Essay -- Business, Logist

Increase in Customer Influence on Businesses and its Resultant Effect on Workers and Managers Introduction So many factors have come together to make today’s business environment very competitive and flexible at the same time. Customers now play a significant role in the production and delivery of both goods and services in the global market. Globalization has also made it possible for comparisons to take place between and amongst different markets, giving the customers knowledge (power) to make choices and demanding more value for their money. This stance of the customer goes a long way to determine the performance of organizations; this is because without the existence of customers to patronize the goods and/or services offered by businesses, there will be no need for these businesses to exist. Customer influence on businesses More often than not, studies have examined the relationship behaviour between businesses and their customers from the business perspective with little or no attention to the customers’ perspective. As stated by Keillor et al (1999), for businesses to succeed in a highly competitive market environment, they must fundamentally understand and satisfy customer needs. Heskett et al (1993, 2003) as sited by Maxham J.G et al (2008) posited that the profit and revenue growth of an organization are a function of customer loyalty which stems from customer satisfaction. The key demands from customers as stated by Heskett and his colleagues are high quality goods/services and satisfactions. For customers to remain loyal to an organization, they must experience good value for their money and satisfaction. Akin to the performance and productivity level of an organization is the performance of the manager... ...ple Resourcing: contemporary HRM in practice. 4th ed. London: Prentice Hall International Shenkar, O. & Luo, Y. (2007) International business. 2nd ed. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications Wu C.H et al (2008) Structural relationships among organization service orientation, employee service performance and consumer identification; the service industry journal vol 28(9) available from: http://ehis.ebscohost.com.ezproxy.liv.ac.uk/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?sid=04c840d7-ec91-4485-bb27-258e51dc1864%40sessionmgr111&vid=1&hid=116 Maxham J.G et al (2008) The Retail Value Chain: linking employee perceptions to employee performance, customer evaluations and store performance. Marketing science journal, vol 27 (2) available from: http://ehis.ebscohost.com.ezproxy.liv.ac.uk/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?sid=e3d4fad3-61ea-4147-8854-dac1e71b41bf%40sessionmgr111&vid=1&hid=116