Because it understands the importance of this, every company wants to be “customer-oriented” or claims to be “customer-oriented”. But what does it really mean to be customer-oriented when you are a company with a highly technical culture and your customers are private or public organisations that buy and use highly technological products, services or solutions?

Being customer-oriented means first of all understanding your customers, how they operate, what their issues are, why and how they buy and use what is sold to them, what ‘makes value’ for them. This understanding is in itself difficult because of its multiple dimensions. Why do we buy this advanced product or this complex system rather than another, why do we buy it from one supplier rather than another, why do we buy rather than do it ourselves, what are the implications of this purchase in terms of a given operating mode at the customer’s premises in terms of transactions, costs, internal processes, training, implementation, need for different services, maintenance, replacement, etc.? These are some of the dimensions of customer understanding.

Being customer-oriented then means maintaining this understanding on an ongoing basis and anticipating changes through an effective and permanent “customer listening” system. Finally, it means managing to strike a delicate balance between these elements of understanding/listening to customers and a highly technical culture that is often focused internally on the performance of its own products.

This section explores and illustrates different dimensions of customer orientation in B2B/B2G high-tech.