Connected CRM: Implementing a Data-Driven, Customer-Centric Business Strategy

Preface

There is only one valid definition of business purpose: to create a customer.

—Peter Drucker

It's been 60 years since the prolific Peter Drucker declared, “Because the purpose of business is to create a customer, the business enterprise has two—and only two—basic functions: marketing and innovation. Marketing and innovation produce results; all the rest are costs. Marketing is the distinguishing, unique function of the business.”

After all this time and boundless technological progress, Drucker's fundamental truth still holds, maybe even more so today. Simply put, I believe when companies embrace an approach based on “customer strategy as a business strategy,” they can create sustainable competitive advantage.

I've spent more than two decades entrenched in the customer relationship marketing (CRM) business. And although CRM has always been centered on the objective of improving relationships with customers, it has evolved from CRM 1.0, which was heavily focused on the software and technology required to manage customer relationships, to the present-day CRM 2.0, which is more about the experience. Today's focus is more about creating a direct dialog with our customers, maximizing their lifetime value, finding new customers who behave like our best ones, and ultimately maximizing return on marketing spend and shareholder value. So what qualifies me to write a book about it?

Well, I think it's safe to say that marketing executives aren't like firefighters and rock stars. ...