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Running Head: WHAT DOES THE CUSTOMER VALUE 4
What the Customer Values
Shawn Harden
Southern Wesylan
June 20, 2017
Peter Drucker's third famous five question: What does the customer value?
The third question by Drucker focuses on what the market desires or needs, and then setting out to satisfy the need. To do so, Drucker proposes that business should ask themselves three questions. The first covers what the primary and secondary customers’ value. This question can be best answered with market research, whereby the company sets out to understand its market, and what is presently available. It can then move in to offer something it feels will close the gap between supply and demand (Drucker, Kuhl, & Hesselbein, 2015). The Electrolux’s consumers desires products that have high reputation of quality. There was a time a refrigerator would last 25 years, if properly cared for. Now-a-days, five to seven has been the normal life cycle. The modern day appliance has more features. They have gone digital with electronic motherboards and screens. The downside to the modern day appliances is a lot of things can now go wrong with the unit. The consumers of today desire the bells and whistles, but they also want the investment to be a lasting one.
The second sub question that Drucker proposes asks what the company can gain from customers in form of knowledge. Customers are highly knowledgeable. They carry information that the company may find valuable and apply in its business. This is most important because the customers’ decision making process is not always rational, but a complicated process that draws on several characteristics and can only be accurately described by the customers themselves (Drucker, Kuhl, & Hesselbein, 2015). In my experience, I have had Electrolux consumers make suggestions about our product, which actually made good business sense. As a voice of the consumer the information was passed on to our factory engineers to see if we could implement the suggestion.
The third question proposed by Drucker revolves around what the company can do to acquire the knowledge that the customer possesses. With this knowledge, the company can be better placed to serve, by coming up with solutions which are aligned with customer expectations. It is only by answering these three questions that the company can have a chance of surviving and thriving in the market (Drucker, Kuhl, & Hesselbein, 2015).
References
Drucker, P., Kuhl, J., & Hesselbein, F. (2015). Peter Drucker's Five Most Important Questions:. Hoboken: Wiley & Sons.