A business plan is an important part of any successful undertaking and includes developing strategies and then successfully executing the strategy.

While there are financial strategies; marketing strategies, and human resource strategies, recently there has been implementation of customer strategy. A sound customer strategy will analyze the customer base to find out what customer needs are being successfully met with an organizations products and services.

• What are we doing right?
• Who is benefiting most from or services?
• Are our best customers increasing their business with us or are they ripe to be picked off by the competition?
• Which customer needs are not being successfully met?
• Which needs are we best suited to meet in the future?

These questions will separate where you want to go verses where you are now. Customer analysis can often be surprising and serendipitous.

If a business has the infrastructure in place to be the lowest cost producer in their market, then obviously they should maximize their position. However, a closer look at how most profitable customers view price may be a prudent step.

If an organization wants to be the low cost producer in a market, their customer base better bear that out. If analysis shows that the most profitable (or fastest growing) customers segments are those that are buying because of special features, extra options or fast delivery time, then a low cost strategy may have a disastrous effect on profits.

Many businesses strive to look more like their competition in the eyes of customers. However, a better approach would be to create a customer strategy from their internal strengths.

If the competition is a large organization then it's a fair bet that they are unresponsive to special customers needs. These areas can be uncovered within a businesses customer data.

• Why are your customers doing business with you rather than a larger competitor?

If a business can focus its efforts on where they are doing well and lift the bar higher and be even better, they will have a sound customer strategy to move forward.

A company's knowledge workers can be a competitive advantage that cannot easily be copied. If employees are very experienced at dealing with a certain customer segment (even though it may be small) they should leverage that strength to the max!

Celebrate the differences between you and your competition instead of trying to beat them at their own game.