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Specific features of companies' client orientation on Russian market

Student: Gulakova Ol`ga

Supervisor: Vera Alexandrovna Rebiazina

Faculty: Faculty of Management

Educational Programme: Master

Year of Graduation: 2014

<p style="text-align: justify;">Customer orientation is one of the leading subjects for researches in marketing.&nbsp; There are many studies of customer oriented companies efficiency.&nbsp; There are many papers describing that customer orientation is capable to improve efficiency of the company.&nbsp; However the most of all investigate the developed markets.&nbsp; Recently there is a dilemma in marketing:&nbsp; whether successful strategies of the developed markets work at emerging markets.&nbsp; Here there is a theme of studying of customer orientation of the companies in Russian market:&nbsp; how well customer orientation is developed among the companies in the Russian market and which direction it needs to be developed.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">The main goal of the paper is development of recommendations how to develop customer-oriented approach in the Russian companies on the basis of the revealed features of companies&rsquo; customer orientation in the Russian market.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;The term customer orientation has roots in the concept of market orientation.&nbsp; There are some approaches for differentiation of customer orientation and market orientation:&nbsp; synonymous understanding; customer orientation as part of market orientation.&nbsp; For definition of market orientation Narver and Slater&#39;s approach (1990) is used:&nbsp; market orientation consists of customer orientation, competitors&rsquo; orientation and interfunctional coordination.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Definition of customer orientation is developed on the basis of Kohli &amp; Jaworski approach (1990). Customer orientation is the company&rsquo;s activity based on collection of information about the current and potential clients, distribution of this information among all company&rsquo;s departments and actions development to satisfy current and future needs of customers by creation of the highest value. Customer orientation appears through corporate culture, vision, values and mission of the company, beliefs and actions of the company&rsquo;s management, relationship between divisions, innovative activities in the companies, relationships with partners in a value creation chain. Customer orientation is a competitive advantage of the company</p><p style="text-align: justify;">The questionnaire studying customer orientation of the companies in the Russian market was developed on the basis of scales of MKTOR, 9 factors scale of Deshpande, Farley and Webster (1993), Proactive market orientation, Responsive market orientation. The analysis of quantitative research showed high level of customer orientation of the Russian companies, however low values of key indicators for customer orientation said that this customer orientation is &ldquo;declared&rdquo;. Such conclusions were confirmed also by the cluster analysis: a large cluster of the companies with declared customer orientation was formed. In-depth interviews with representatives of the companies explained the reasons of declared customer orientation in the Russian market. The main problem is in incomplete understanding of customer orientation by companies. The majority of respondents explained customer orientation through research and satisfaction of clients needs, however didn&#39;t mention the processes standing behind these components. According to the respondents&rsquo; description of companies&rsquo; processes, collecting, distribution and analysis of clients&rsquo; information aren&#39;t developed. There is no methodology on customers&rsquo; satisfaction measurement. On the basis of quantitative and in-depth interviews research specific features of customer orientation of the Russian companies were revealed. Results of in-depth interviews allowed describing specific features of B2B/B2C companies providing goods/services. On the basis of these specifics both the general recommendations and specific recommendations for B2B/B2C of the companies providing goods/services were developed.</p>

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