The day I feared has arrived. You knew you could not download much weight billing and resources in a single customer, it has decided to abandon when least expected. What to do?
First, as all the experts insist, do not panic. It is true that this situation should not have ever given, “is insane that monopolization of our services by a customer occurs, we must diversify the source of income and thus the risks,” recalls Juan Carlos Alcaide, director of Institute of Marketing Services, even as he acknowledges, “there are few business managers capable of taking cold the decision to cut a good customer orders”.
The ideal portfolio
There is no magic formula to establish the ideal portfolio. It depends on each sector. The vendor must change each quarter and establishing long – term agreements. So the key would be to set a cost-risk analysis based on the famous Pareto rule, according to which 80% of a company ‘s sales are achieved with 20% of the customer base. Jaime Muñoz, director of Commercial Programs EAE, “if you have a 80% / 40%, the risk disappears customer loss, but increase costs and service management. But if you have a 80% / 10%, the risk is very high because the customer leakage affects the income statement. “
Alejandro Martin, “which should always try is that the risk is variable to obtain a healthy portfolio. An interesting proposal could be: A customers are 20% of the total and account for 60% of your turnover; clients B rightful 60% / 30% and C, 20% / 10%. The composition eventually will vary depending on such diverse factors as the nature of the business, competition or risks and management costs that are willing to take. “
To each according to their importance
Carlos Torrecilla, Professor of Marketing Management at ESADE, divides customers based on what they bring. The client structure or that with which pays 80% of the structure. It is a user or captive buyer, but if it goes, is the most damaging and difficult to replace because the other customers market structures tend to be captive in other companies. Leaves little margin, adjusted as much prices, but provides so much volume that helps keep functioning. For example, in the case of a consultant would be a multinational, for chair manufacturer, an airline and a business school, bachelor’s degrees.
The customer margin. It is casual. Usually order a more or less large volume where you can load a lot of room. They are the most interesting in the short term, faithful, but never captives. Remember that every time you get one, you have to fight with the rest of the competition. Also it is not difficult to capture them , if low prices. For a business school would be specific training courses; in the case of a consultant, the timely client requesting a business plan or training and can become a customer of structure; whether it is factory chairs, we speak of individual customers who want to buy some.
The client image: usually a public or similar institution you interested in the credibility and image that transmit the rest of your customers. It gives very little room. For a business school or consultant, it would be agreements with a community government or a government ministry. In the case of factory chairs, the customer image may be, for example, Formula 1.
Finally, based on the dissection of Carlos Torrecilla, the customer base should help pay structure (30% of customers structure), to obtain performance (30% of margin) and achieve positioning (30% of customers image).
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