Take the case of any organization that is considered to be a global leader or a product leader and you will find that the recipe for success lies in the customer centered culture and approach that has been built up in the Company. The customer orientation is not limited to customer service or the front ending staff alone. This orientation goes a lot more deeper in terms of being the core value and focus of the entire organization including the management, the product development groups as well as the marketing and the service staff. You can in fact identify clearly the communication channel that is open across all levels right up to the highest level where in any information about the customer flows through fast and is acted upon immediately without waiting or wasting time.

Being customer oriented is an attitude that should be cultivated by each and every working professional. For tomorrow’s business managers and today’s management students, this becomes an essential quality that can propel them to greater heights in their career path.

Path breaking sales and marketing strategies are designed and implemented by those who know their customers better than the customer’s themselves and are able to pre-empt customer’s requirements before anyone else does. This is an attitude that a professional should cultivate as a personal skill irrespective of the Organizational or team’s orientation and attitude.

To define customer orientation attitude that is required to be imbibed and developed, a bit of detailing here will be useful. There are many managers and team leaders who sit in the comfort of their air conditioned offices and believe that the reports, analysis, data as well as conference calls with the customers or meeting with the customer regularly for review gives them a good idea of what is happening with the customer. Managers and organizations cannot spin themselves into leadership position with this kind of approach. At organizational as well as individual level what is required is the attitude and approach to live with the customer, to know the customer’s needs and pain areas even before the customer feels it.

Take the case of star performers in any organization and you will find that those managers are literally married to their customers. They practically live with their customers, go through every experience that their customer goes through and looks at their own product or service from the customer’s point of view. Putting yourself into customer’s shoe is but the surest way to success. Living With the customer makes it easy for you to understand customer’s needs, his expectations, his dreams as well as customer behavior and attitudes etc which make it possible for you to tailor make solutions and products that match as well as exceed customer expectations. Living with the customer ensures that you grow the account on long term basis.

Whatever be your area of work, be it marketing, project management or production, it is essential to have the customer oriented attitude and it helps you see things which the others may not be able to. Another important fact is that you will be able to not only look at your customer’s and markets needs today, but you are able to sense their needs and expectations that are going to come up tomorrow. Getting to understand where your customer is headed tomorrow, gives you clear indications on how you should get your organization positioned to be relevant to the customer and markets as well as to plan to engage with your customers in partnership for future.

Star performers are not only hard workers but are smart workers who truly believe that their Customer is the King.