The Market Driven Organization

For forty years managers have been exhorted to "stay close to the customer and ahead of the competition." And with good reason. Research now shows that market-driven organizations outperform their rivals. Given the obvious benefits, why do so many companies fail to become market driven? Because their internal processes, structures, incentives, and controls get in the way, says George Day, one of the world's leading authorities on marketing strategy. Building on his pathbreaking book Market Driven Strategy and a decade of experience in coaching firms to deliver superior customer value, Day presents for the first time a battle-tested framework for creating the market-driven organization.

In eminently readable prose, Day argues that in successful market driven organizations, three key elements — capabilities, culture, and configuration — are aligned to the market. Day explores the distinctive market sensing and market relating capabilities that are at the heart of the market-driven companies. He draws on examples of such market-driven firms as Intuit, Wal-Mart, Virgin Airlines, Disney, and Gillette to illustrate how intimate knowledge of their customers and markets gives these firms a powerful advantage over rivals. By contrast, Day shows how failure to align the organization to the market can result in such mishaps as IBM's loss of leadership of the computer market or Motorola's stumble in shifting from analog to digital cellular phone systems.

Using case studies of Owens Corning, Sears, and the Eurotunnel, Day provides a concise roadmap to managers who want to strengthen the orientation of their organizations to the market. He concludes with a detailed diagnostic questionnaire to help managers assess their own progress. Here at last are all the insights and tools necessary to construct a company with superior skills for understanding, attracting, and keeping valuable customers.

• Introduction: Move to the Market
• Part I: Understanding Market Orientation
  1. What It Means to Be Market Driven
     • Understanding the Orientation to the Market
     • Advantages of a Market Orientation
     • Is Being Market Driven for Everyone?
     • Staying Ahead in Turbulent Markets
     • Market Driven Winners
  2. Misconceptions About Market Orientation
     • Why Don't More Firms Become Market Driven?
     • Superior to the Market
     • Avoiding the Pitfalls
  3. Market Driven Cultures
     • Market Driven Cultures
     • Understanding the Culture
     • Summary: The Defining Role of Culture
  4. Configuring Around Capabilities
     • Culture, Capabilities and Processes
     • Identifying Capabilities
     • Managing Capabilities
     • Integrating Culture and Capabilities: How Virgin Atlantic Flies on All Engines
     • Toward a New Concept of the Organization
• Part II: Building the Capabilities
  5. Market Sensing
     • Sensing the Market
     • Sense Making
     • Improving Market Sensing
     • The Collective Memory
  6. The Shared Knowledge Base
     • Synergistic Information Distribution
     • Converting Information Into Strategic Knowledge
     • Retaining Knowledge
  7. Market Relating
     • Relating for Advantage
     • Building Relationships with the Market
     • The Spectrum of Relationships
     • Summary: Rethinking Market Relationships
  8. Competing for Customer Relationships
     • Customer Responsive Strategies
     • Exploiting Interactivity
     • Summary
  9. Collaborative Partnering
     • Partnering with Customers
     • Channel Bonding
     • Summary: The Advantages of Collaborative Partnering
• Part III: Aligning the Organization to the Market
  10. Reshaping the Organization
      • Trade-offs and the Search for Optimal Design
      • The Emergence of Hybrid Organizations
      • What Role for Marketing?
      • Achieving Closer Alignment to the Market
  11. Setting the Direction
      • Market Driven Strategic Thinking
      • The Capability for Thinking Strategically
  12. Guiding the Change
      • Three Stories of Transformation
      • Designing the Change Process
      • The Six Conditions
      • Conclusion: Answering the Call to the Market
• Appendix: Is Your Organization Market Driven?

The second volume of Professor Day's writings.

It is OK, it talks about being customer-oriented, but if you ain't that, I doubt a book will change your mind.