Marketing Strategy and Competitive Positioning pdf ebook

CHAPTER 14 STRATEGIC CUSTOMER MANAGEMENT AND THE STRATEGIC SALES ORGANISATION
Further reading: Emotional appeal
Supporting the local economy appeals to market-
women, and Nestlé draws on this, says Hervé Bar-
rère, the company’s Congo director. Unlike Nestlé’s 
products, competitors’ stock cubes are made and 
imported entirely from abroad.
However, some of Mr Barrère’s toughest competi-
tion, he discovered, came from Nestlé itself: its stock 
cubes had been smuggled from Nigeria and Kenya. 
In both cases the taste and the packaging – in Eng-
lish – were not adapted to a French-speaking market 
with a more eclectic palate. Several tours to the fac-
tory, which employs 60 people, convinced the women 
to switch. ‘It was very emotional: one of the mum-
mies cried because . . . she realised she has a role to 
play to develop the country.’
Source
: from ‘Power of the “mummies” key to Nestlé’s strategy in DR Congo’, Financial Times, 01/10/14 (Manson, K.).
Discussion questions
1 
How does strategic customer management differ from selling? How is it strategic?
2 
How is Nestlé using strategic customer management in the Democratic Republic of the Congo? What are the 
benefits of such an infrastructure?
3 
How is such an approach also helping with the rest of the marketing mix?

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‘Good relationships between companies are of crucial importance. They 
represent the effective teamwork that allows partners to create value 
for customers and shareholders that could not possibly be created by 
individual firms.’
(Gibbs and Humphries, 2009)
‘But, on the other hand . . . We have no permanent allies, we have no 
permanent enemies, we only have permanent interests.’
(Attributed to Henry John Temple, Viscount Lord Palmerston 1784–1865, Foreign 
Secretary and Prime Minister of Great Britain during Queen Victoria’s reign)
STRATEGIC ALLIANCES AND 
NETWORKS