3rd Edition
Customer
Relationship
Management
Concepts and Technologies
FRANCIS BUTTLE AND STAN MAKLAN
CH 5
Customer portfolio management
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Customer portfolio definition
▰ A customer portfolio is the collection of
mutually exclusive customer groups that
comprise a business’s entire customer
base.
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Objectives of Customer Portfolio Management (CPM)
▰ CPM aims to optimize business
performance – whether that means
sales growth, enhanced customer
profitability or something else – across
the entire customer base.
▰ It does this by offering differentiated
value propositions to different segments
of customers.
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How B2B customers differ from B2C customers
▰ Fewer in number
▰ Bigger in size
▰ Closer relationships with suppliers
▰ Derived demand
▰ Professional buying
▰ Direct purchase
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Basic disciplines for CPM
▰ Market segmentation
▰ Sales forecasting
▰ Activity-based costing
▰ Customer lifetime value estimation
▰ Data mining
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Market segmentation definition
▰ Market segmentation is the process of
dividing up a market into more-or-less
homogenous subsets for which it is
possible to create different value
propositions.
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Market segmentation process
1. Identify the business you are in
2. Identify relevant segmentation variables
3. Analyse the market using these variables
4. Assess the value of the market segments
5. Select target market(s) to serve
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CRITERIA FOR
SEGMENTING
BUSINESS MARKETS
IBM targets 18 industry sectors
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Account-based segmentation variables
▰ Account value
▰ Share of category (share of wallet) spend
▰ Propensity to switch
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Evaluation of segmentation opportunities
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Sales forecasting methods
▰ Qualitative methods
▻ Customer surveys
▻ Sales team estimates
▰ Time-series methods
▻ Moving average
▻ Exponential smoothing
▻ Time-series decomposition
▰ Causal methods
▻ Leading indicators
▻ Regression models 13
Activity-based costing 1
Costs do vary from customer-to-customer. Some customers are very
costly to acquire and serve, others are not.
❖ Customer acquisition costs
▻ Some customers require considerable sales effort to shift them
from prospect to first-time customer status: more sales calls, visits
to reference customer sites, free samples, engineering advice,
guarantees that switching costs will be met by the vendor.
▰ Terms of trade
▻ Price discounts, advertising and promotion support, slotting
allowances (cash paid to retailers for shelf space), extended 14
invoice due dates.
Activity-based costing 2
▰ Customer service costs
▻ Handling queries, claims and complaints, demands on
salesperson and contact centre, small order sizes, high order
frequency, just-in-time delivery, part-load shipments, breaking
bulk for delivery to multiple sites.
▰ Working capital costs
▻ Carrying inventory for the customer, cost of credit.
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How ABC helps CPM
▰ When combined with revenue figures, it tells you the
absolute and relative levels of profit generated by each
customer, segment or cohort
▰ It guides you towards actions that can be taken to return
customers to profit
▰ It helps prioritize and direct customer acquisition,
retention and development strategies
▰ It helps establish whether customization, and other forms
of value creation for customers, pays off 16
Data mining for CPM
▰ Clustering techniques
[Link]
▰ Decision trees
▰ Neural networks (Machine Based Learning)
▰ How do they get data
▰ [Link]
▰ [Link]
▰ Internet of Things IOT
▰ [Link]
▰ Big Data
▰ [Link] 17
Neural networks
▰ Neural networks, also known as machine-based learning,
are another way of fitting a model to existing data for
prediction purposes.
▰ Neural networks can produce excellent predictions from
large and complex datasets containing hundreds of
interactive predictor variables, but the neural networks are
neither easy to understand nor straightforward to use.
▰ Neural networks are represented by complex mathematical
equations, with many summations, exponential functions
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and parameters.
Customer
portfolio models
The 80:20 rule or Pareto principle
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Customer profitability by sales volume quintile
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Shapiro et al.’s customer portfolio matrix
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How costs vary between customers
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Fiocca’s CPM model: step 1
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Fiocca step 2: Strategic options
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Additional CPA tools
▰ SWOT analysis
▰ BCG matrix analysis
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Boston Consulting Group (BCG) matrix
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Strategically significant customers 1
▰ High future lifetime value customers
▻ These customers will contribute significantly to the
company’s profitability in the future.
▰ High volume customers
▻ These customers might not generate much profit, but
they are strategically significant because of their
absorption of fixed costs, and the economies of scale
they generate to keep unit costs low.
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Strategically significant customers 2
▰ Benchmark customers
▻ These are customers that other customers follow.
For example, Nippon Conlux supplies the hardware and software for
Coca-Cola’s vending operation. Whilst they might not make much
margin from that relationship, it has allowed them to gain access to
many other markets. ‘If we are good enough for Coke, we are good
enough for you’, is the implied promise. Some IT companies create
‘reference sites’ at some of their more demanding customers.
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Strategically significant customers 3
▰ Inspirations
▻ These are customers who bring about improvement in the supplier’s
business. They may identify new applications for a product, product
improvements or opportunities for cost reductions. They may
complain loudly and make unreasonable demands but, in doing so,
force change for the better.
▰ Door openers
▻ These are customers that allow the supplier to gain access to a new
market. This may be done for no initial profit, but with a view to
proving credentials for further expansion. This may be particularly
important if crossing cultural boundaries, say between west and east. 30
Seven core customer management
strategies
1. Protect the relationship
2. Re-engineer the relationship
3. Grow the relationship
4. Harvest the relationship
5. End the relationship
6. Win-back the customer
7. Start a relationship
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Thanks!
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