Customer centricity or market orientation. Two words that companies like to use but not many of them can live up to. Why is that? Because it is very, very difficult.

Let me show you why.

Let's get into it.

Unfortunately, data from SurveyMonkey shows that 76% of people think that marketers are selling them things that they don't need. On top of that, 35% of startups fail because they have no market needs. Why is that? Firstly, employees and managers don't understand that they are least qualified to make customers decisions. They think that markets value their intuition and personal preferences.

So why do we continue creating things that people don't want?

This is a difficult mindset to change. Next, imagine a situation where top managers take time out of an important decision making process to ask customers or consumers if they are on the right track. Usually, the answer would be it is hard to find time. Instead it is fundamental to build a culture where insight from customers are shared on regular basis and across all functions of the business.

But customers don't know what they want, you might say. True.

But quantitative data is not customer-centricity. Through customer-centricity, market orientation or being market-driven is a situation where the company directs all of its activities towards the market. It uses the market as a source of knowledge, insight and answers to potential questions. Then this feedback is communicated to all major units and based on that decisions are made. Market research is just one part of the toolbox that the organization can use if it wants to be market-driven. But it's only the beginning. Usually, what I've just mentioned is very hard and requires time to fully implement.

So what are the things that you could do now for your organization without making any drastic changes?

Start fresh. Go out and listen to customers. Watch them shop and use your product.
Find time, find space, diagnose, review and listen to the customers.
Work towards a compromise between sales, production and product department so that those areas are not overshadowing the need for market insight.
Don't act on assumptions and personal opinions.This can easily lead to these assumptions being treated as real knowledge and being repeated in the future. If an opinion or decision is based solely on internal knowledge, be suspicious. When asking customers and clients, don't be afraid of the results.

This is the time to be brave and look at the customer feedback. Transparency is key. If customers think something is bad, it probably is. And acting on that feedback will be the best thing that you can do for your organization. Relationship with customers shouldn't be reserved only for one department. Customer feedback is crucial.

As Jack Welch said it:

"There are only two sources of competitive advantage. The ability to learn more about our customers faster than the competition and the ability to turn that learning into action faster than the competition."


If you are a manager, work on getting feedback from customer-facing staff up to management so they know what is happening. This can be included in regular status reports or updates. Don't treat this like an accident report, where no feedback is good feedback. You need to find time to look at the opinions and consider whether it is something that can be acted upon and used. If possible, release early versions of the product or service and evaluate the results. This will tell you far more than any declarative data or research.

And market will always decide. Today's technology enables companies to create amazing mockups, MVPs, so minimum viable products, and early versions quickly and relatively cheaply. These kind of tests are always the best because this will tell you far more than any other source of data.

Finally, remind yourself and everyone else in the company often that...

You are not the customer.

Your preferences and choices are not those of your customers.

So the next time you say you are market driven, ask yourself if you really are.

As a reminder, new episodes come Tuesdays and Fridays. If you have any inputs, questions or suggestions, don't hesitate to send them to me. .