4.6 Relative size of individual customers

“The customer is king” is a valid saying for the Expert Orientation. In the Expert’s eyes, the client is as a rule “bigger” than the Expert himself. The difference in size can be observed also in fact. For instance the world’s big auditing, consulting or advertising companies represent the Expert Orientation and the companies they serve are still bigger as far as their economic force is concerned. Experts such as consultants, specialists, advisors etc. usually serve higher and more powerful positions not only in business.

The Product Orientation is the first orientation where this situation is reversed. The individual customer becomes smaller mentally and in fact. The Product business may only occasionally be smaller than its individual customer, for instance when supplying a government or bigger company. Then it also acts as if it were an Expert company, arranging an individual solution including special prices for a Client.

Mental size of the Self-Service customers is even smaller; see the typical Self-Services like Wal-Mart or Amazon.

The size of Commodity Orientation customers is sort of reduced to zero in respect to the real customer which is the global market of the given commodity.

The “size balance“ may be crucial for the survival of the business. For instance when a business serves small customers through the Expert Orientation, what can happen is that one day cheaper Product and/or Self-Service competition appears and all small customers will be forced by price to abandon the Expert. The illustration of this is the fate of cobblers (Experts) who went bankrupt at the beginning of 20th century, after the shoes stopped being an individual Solution and became Products available at Self-Services (stores). The cobblers who switched to the Product and/or Self- Service Orientation destroyed their colleagues who stuck with the Expert Orientation.