Abstract
M.Comm.
Lots have been said in the literature in regard to customer value and the way it should influence the company and its management strategy. Customer focused, close to the customer, building customer relations creating customer value, becoming customer driven and exceeding customer expectations are some of the hottest subject executives are talking about. If so way are most companies in South Africa and in the world still content with their internal measurements without asking whether what they are measuring has any relevance on the companies performance (Fagiano, 1997:6). For South African companies competitiveness have never been more important because of the rapidly changing global environment and the swift changes in the demographic and socio-economic locally (De Villiers & Slabbert, 1996:35). The death of distance and the (Peters, 1997:2) current exchange rate of the rand makes it advantageous for international companies to invest in South-Africa putting local companies under a lot of strain. It is proposed to use customer value as a strategic performance measure tool and to develop a customer driven culture to insure that the perceived value of the product is above expectation and that branding is achieved through customer value. It was indicated that customer value can be a performance measurement tool and a major component in the strategic management process and that it is here to stay and will be a vehicle for many a company to achieve competitive advantage. The principle of customer value is not new and has been proven in the Total Quality Management process. It would thus be building on existing capabilities that have been acquired from total quality management of internal processes and products. The challenge lies in refocusing from the internal quality processes to an external customer value. This movement of focus will not be easy and organisations will have to rethink their culture, structure and managerial capabilities. Employees will need to learn a few new skills such as (1) customer responsiveness and evaluation, (2) innovation, (3) strategic thinking, (4) radical thinking and internal motivation