Customer Partnership Defined

"Customer partnership is a shared journey to create a future for both parties that is better than either could have developed alone."¹ The customer influences every aspect of your business and is the foundation of your organization's success. In today's turbulent times of rapid and chaotic change, "no force is more grounding and stabilizing than a partnership with customers."¹ The term 'customer partnership' we take not so much in its legal definition of co-ownership but rather in its sense of  sharing in benefits, profits and losses of your company.

Customer partnership is more than "putting customers first", or  finding mutually satisfactory solutions to shared problems, or  a dedication to excellence in every sale or service encounter. It also requires commitment to forging long-term relationships that create synergies of knowledge, security, and adaptability for both parties.

Why Customer Partnership?

Fierce competition today forces companies to become much more creative and flexible in their dealings with customers to give them exactly what they want – faster. Creating a partnership with customers will help your organizations maintain the focus you need to make good decisions and harness the power and commitment you need to weather volatile times. Partnering with customers represents your firm's "capacity to anticipate what customers need even before they know they need it."²

The Role of Corporate Leaders

Because only corporate leaders have the ability to significantly change an organization, design radically new value innovation strategies and deploy the resources required to pursue boldly big opportunities, it is imperative that people at the top be in regular and direct contact with customers.

Increasing Customer Value-added through Virtual Integration

"The more you do for customers, the more of their work that you undertake, the harder it is to to find the line that separates you from them," writes Michael Hammer. "Companies that perform more of their customers' work in order to differentiate themselves from their competitors and earn higher margins are, in effect, integrating themselves into their customer's operations... More

  BMW

In partnership with its customers and external innovators, BMW is constantly seeking to discover new technologies and design features to put into future cars. To harvest the insights of creative minds outside the BMW Group, the firm's Virtual Innovation Agency (VIA) is the point of contact for all external innovators who do not as yet have contacts within the firm. VIA makes it easy for car fans to communicate their ideas through its web-site, with additional online discussions that solicit ideas from enthusiasts around the world... More

 Dell Inc.

Dell Inc. start their innovation process with asking their customers, "What would you really want this thing to do? Is there a different way to accomplish that?" Then they meet with their suppliers and ask, "Can we do this in a different way?" Then they try to come up with a totally different approach that exceeds the original objectives... More

 Nypro

Nypro designed new injection process for each customer, sharing insights with the customers' own engineering and marketing teams to solve their specific problems. They worked together: partners in innovation. Nypro situated its new plants next door to its customers and integrated its new process with theirs... More

 Corning

Corning keeps it's customers, end-users and OEM suppliers well informed of its product development plans. It uses road-mapping as a co-innovation tool that allows customers and suppliers to work together to build products... More

 GE

Involve customers, urged  → Jack Welch. Quality program is aimed at enhancing satisfaction of your customers. Find out what customers want. Involve them to participate in your work, to drive it, to "manage your enterprise."... More

Customer-driven Innovation: 7 Practice Tips

Involve customers in testing the prototype of your new product... More