Brännback, Malin. (2011).

The Concept of Customer -Orientation and Its Implication

for Competence Development. In this article we discuss the importance of customer-
orientation for corporate success. Customer-orientation is not merely managerial
jargon, although a quick glance through annual reports would lead one to such a
conclusion. There is some substantial meaning in the concept. Customer-orientation
is not the exclusive right of the marketing department. In fact, we argue that
customer-orientation is the core of business success, the meaning of which has to
be disseminated throughout the organisation, the meaning of which has to be
understood and internalised by everyone. We argue that integrated customer-
orientation is the basis for corporate competence development, and thus competence
development and management of core competencies becomes important for both internal
and external business processes. Customer-orientation is therefore effective
knowledge management.