5 Steps to a Market Oriented Business

Embracing a customer centric approach for B2B

The market oriented series by Rachel Fairley & Mark Baker

Byron Sharp convinced both of us a decade ago that success comes from increasing market share by growing market penetration. After all, the mission of any business is to serve customers. We know this is a requirement of being market oriented: we must target segments who are in-market buying, including both new and existing customers. It surprises us how often colleagues believe that selling to existing customers is the only priority.

Inside-out is not customer centric

This is the difference between inside-out and outside-in strategies: product orientation and sales orientation versus market orientation.

The inside-out approach is finding customers for our products. To achieve the end of quarter target we see upselling and cross-selling to existing customers in a ‘sell to who you know’ and ‘low hanging fruit’ approach. We focus on the heavy buyers - we’ve all heard about the ‘CEOs accounts’ or the ‘top [insert number here] largest accounts’ - believing the fallacy that they will buy more when they already have all they need. We tap into ‘installed bases’ of loyal customers, without admitting that loyalty reflects the strength of the relationship and brand, not from just being a customer.

When existing customers become the priority, planning focuses on selling products to Sales customer lists and marketing metrics and measurement are all about whether they helped Sales sell. Where to play and how to play are tactical rather than strategic decisions. The planning process is an annual rinse and repeat. What worked last year will work this year, right?

Market orientation is customer centric

Market orientation is outside-in and customer centric. If we want to grow the business, we need to serve the market, so must be driven by it. The market is often presented as monolithic, when it is actually segmented and made up of homogeneous and heterogeneous groups. Professor Mark Ritson, a leading voice in marketing, teaches “the humility of being market oriented is knowing you’re at the whim of the target market.” Market dynamics shift. Competitors are active. Customers have choices and are polygamous. We seek to be one of their choices.

What business to business can learn from business to consumer

We’ve always found business to consumer (B2C) leaders more market oriented than business to business (B2B) leaders. Why is this?

B2C organisations understand that growing means targeting segments in the available market. They accept the discipline Ritson has instilled, “you are not the customer”. They actively listen to tap into the emotional and rational triggers that set prospective customers on their buying journey. They keep a wary eye on competitors and changing market dynamics. They know that if you are out of sight, you are out of mind, and they have learned how to be mentally and physically available to customers in the market.

Perhaps the answer to why B2C finds it easier to orientate to the market lies in its love for data. In B2B we can think that we understand the customer because our product, marketing and sales colleagues talk to them every day. B2C doesn’t have that direct engagement, so sources the information through research and data. It is born of necessity, but it leaves B2C businesses more accurately informed than B2B, where we can end up relying on impressions from a small number of data points. If we are to let go of our own opinions and truly orient ourselves to the customer then we need to understand what they want, need and think - and that requires research that delivers lots of the right data.

Only leadership drives market orientation

The biggest challenge we see in becoming market oriented is bringing the customer point of view into the organisation. Benson B. Shapiro (1988) offers a test we use to assess how market oriented we are.

1. Are we easy to do business with?

2. Do we keep our promises?

3. Do we meet the standards we set?

4. Are we responsive?

5. Do we work together?

An honest yes/no to these questions tells us where to begin.

Market orientation is a business culture. It requires us to listen to the market and make decisions based on market realities. To grow market share we have to be relevant to the audience, mentally available, different from the competition and authentic to be credible. That customer centric business and brand strategy are our leadership responsibility.

To be customer centric, we have to help customers find the right products for them. The faster our customers get value from their investment, the better. We must make it easy for customers to go when they wish and welcome them back when they return (the boomerangs), because we accept that is how the market works. Rather than focus on the heavy or largest buyers, we look for the light and the never buyers in a land and expand approach, because that is where the new opportunity to sell is.

Data strategy provides us with insights into where to play, how well we are doing and where we can improve. Dynamic planning aligns the organisation to respond to the market together. The business is structured to scale and make the most of the opportunities. The core metrics are all from the customer’s perspective of how they buy and consume.

Serving the market is how to make the revenue target every quarter.

Adopting market orientation is a cultural change but there are clear ways to make it happen. These five articles explain how to effectively re-orientate your business to the market in order to grow:

1. An open letter to the CEO asking them to embrace customer centricity

2. Creating a scalable marketing organisation that is structured and empowered to respond to market needs in an agile way

3. Why we need data strategy to unite us by telling us where to play, how well we are doing, where to improve and when to change.

4. Adopting a dynamic planning approach that aligns the whole organisation around the customer

5. Measuring what matters means seeing everything from the customer’s perspective and setting metrics that focus on delivery of the agreed strategy.

Rachel Fairley and Mark Baker are friends and work allies, with a combined experience of over fifty years. Rachel is a marketer and brand strategist whose focus is on driving growth, contributing to over 25 business transformations across more than 100 countries and many industries. Mark is an international tech marketer who leads digital transformation to accelerate revenue with the right people, strategy, technology and operational business models.