Exploration of customer horizons to measure understanding of netchains

Abstract

The importance of a market orientation as the basis for meeting customer expectations is well known in marketing. In applying this concept to networks or netchains, the concept “customer horizon” is proposed to measure the ability to name or identify downstream customers and their requirements. A case study of five organizations in a netchain is examined to determine each company's customer horizon in terms of “breadth” and “length”. Based on the findings, it is suggested that companies can choose between alternative configurations of customer horizons. It is argued that it may be important to watch out for narrow and short customer horizons – especially when customer satisfaction is low, end consumer requirements are changing and/or these changes are not being communicated upstream to suppliers.

Citation

Storer, C.E., Holmen, E. and Pedersen, A. (2003), "Exploration of customer horizons to measure understanding of netchains", Supply Chain Management, Vol. 8 No. 5, pp. 455-466. https://doi.org/10.1108/13598540310500286