استفاده از اطلاعات مربوط به مشتری در بازارهای بنگاه به بنگاه: مودلینگ از طریق فرآیند؟

Despite of the empirical evidence that shows that customer information utilization may improve a company's customer and business performance, customer information utilization is underdeveloped in many companies. This research contributes to the understanding of customer information generation and utilization in business-to-business companies. Based on findings from field interviews, the authors propose that the process of generating and using customer information tends to follow Lindblom's (1959) successive-limited comparison or muddling through method. The muddling through method emphasizes small incremental changes, building up from the current situation, and shorter term orientation. Authors suggest that companies should balance their customer information utilization efforts by using both short-term and long-term methods when developing customer information generation and utilization.

Customer relationship management and other equivalent systems make possible for companies to track individual customer behavior and a company's ability to manage its customer information has become crucial in sustaining a competitive advantage in any industry (Hogan et al., 2002 and Lambert, 2010). However, many researchers argue that the use of customer information that companies possess is underdeveloped in the context of marketing and sales decisions (Bose and Sugumaran, 2003 and Pass et al., 2004Jayachandran et al., 2005, Morgan et al., 2005 and Moorman, 2009). Companies tend to focus more on generating customer information than on improving and investing in using customer information they already have (Day, 2003 and Zayah and Griffin, 2004). The recent American Marketing Association's Chief Marketing Officer Survey echoes similar pattern of behavior, “Companies need help pulling all the customer information they have together into a meaningful portrait” (Moorman, 2009). Also a study by Satmetrix had similar findings; 95% of the companies that participated in the study indicated that they collect customer feedback, but only 10% of them deploy and improve their offerings based on this feedback. This research explores customer information generation and utilization in the business-to-business companies. The findings from the field interviews suggest that developing and improving generation and utilization of customer information follows Lindblom's (1959) muddling through method, which emphasizes small incremental changes, building up from the current situation, and shorter term orientation. This paper continues as follows. The first section discusses the concepts of generation and utilization of customer information in the business-to-business context. The second section describes the methodology and research context. The third section discusses the findings from the field interviews and managerial implications. The fourth section is conclusions and avenues for future research.

Developing customer information generation and utilization is a challenging and constantly changing task in the companies, which can have significant short and long terms benefits for the company such as increased customer satisfaction and customer performance (see: Zahay and Griffin, 2010; customer-based performance measures). The findings from this research indicate that companies tend to follow Lindblom's (1959) muddling through method when approaching and developing their generating and utilizing customer information instead of using more strategic approach. Managers are going from decision to decision as they come up rather than taking a longer-term, planned approach to develop and improve customer information utilization. Skillful muddling can be an important skill in making sense of amounts of customer information in short-term. However, companies should balance muddling through approach with more strategic, longer-term approach. A number of avenues are available for future research in customer information generation and utilization. For instance, future research could study more closely individual-level customer information utilization (see Celuch et al., 2000) by studying skillful muddling, and how individual managers balance their efforts in using customer information shorter and longer terms goals. Future research could also use quantitative research approach to examine more closely how many companies actually follow muddling through method, and how that might affect their customer-related performance such as customer satisfaction. This research confirms that some types of customer information utilization are not desirable or even useful for the company. Future research could apply longitudinal research design to further explain how, why, and which customer information utilization skills and processes develop within a company over time.