Monday, March 30, 2009

Diving Back down to the 5 to 10,000 foot level

Whew!
Enough of that for a time. So rather than stay at 125,000 feet "above the dust and smoke obscuring the horizon", let's get down to where we live.

Before getting closer to the dirt, "the dots" so to speak, let's make a quick detour at the 10- 15,000 foot level.  Here we are reminded of certain decisions, specific acts of selectivity that underlie our business model. Here we might say that:
 
Selection is the single most important decision the business makes.  

(At a minimum for 2 simple reasons: no firm can be all things to all people as once appeared to be thought. Every firm has limited resources in terms of time, money and people. 

At time of inception, and of necessity throughout its existence if it is to thrive and survive, the company has answered the following basic questions (see Value Migration for a deeper look into the basis of "pattern recognition" in business literature):

What business are we in?
Which Customers do we serve?
What control do we have ?
How do we make money?
What core competencies do we own , which do we outsource?

- you get it.

The answers we select are the elements of our business design 
( - a pattern that delivers relevance and value as defined by your customer  underlies the successful business design according to AS).

Now, moving closer to the ground level view:
When we build a customer-based,  customer-focused business design - at the 10,000 foot level - "selection effects every element of our business mosaic. In effect we are seeking to optimize our efforts, complementing the other framing work supporting this effort by ultimately managing the equity of our customers - customer portfolio management. 
What seems to happen at this level is that "targeting, segmentation and grading"  (or, valuation) become the essential tools for weaving this tapestry (maybe a better metaphor than mosaic - so, please: work with me here!).

In other words, I hope to demonstrate that operating under a  few key assumptions and using the tools of the integrated marketing and customer portfolio approach and the "systems thinker, we can identify " the dots" build our successful crm-guided business model, using the answers that are always already there


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