Relationship-Centric Companies: Part 2 - "The Characteristics"

While the characteristics of each industry segment are unique, similar underlying business goals exist: building strong business partnerships and delivering personalized interactions to their end-user base. And while the preceding examples show the relationship pattern on a large scale, the fundamental concepts are scalable in both directions and significant value can be achieved from even a simple implementation of these concepts.

Even if they themselves don’t think about it in these terms—these companies have demonstrated an evolution in thinking beyond brick and mortar concepts and widget-based sales, and even beyond SOA and traditional IT implementations. These companies are embracing an evolved vision of providing all-encompassing value in the way they deliver their offerings to their affiliates and customers that goes beyond their individual products and services.

There are common and recognizable characteristics common to the relationship-centric company:

1. Substantial Customer Relationships
   Relationships between end-users and the business that rely upon historical relationship data being readily available and contextually relevant to the specific interaction (i.e. placing an order, checking an account balance, or requesting service).
2. Collaborative Business Affiliate Relationships
   Strategic and partnering relationships between organizations that collaborate to drive mutual value and to deliver product/service offerings to end-users. These relationships often require different processing rules and branding and may benefit from deeper integration with partner systems and data stores.
3. Content Rich Touch Points
   Highly personalized and appropriately branded end-user interaction points that deliver targeted, relevant information through a variety of presentation channels. These offer-related interactions, initiated internally or indirectly via affiliates' systems, need to be delivered in a repeatable and consistent manner through multiple channels—web, desktop, voice/IVR, mobile, etc.—while fully leveraging the benefits and characteristics of the underlying media.
4. Substantial Underlying Technology Investments
   Investment in systems to support core business, industry functions and data stores related to proprietary, differentiating, and end-user information. These systems bring meaningful content and value to both the end-user and affiliate conversations.
5. Recombinant Business Offerings
   The ultimate goal: Virtualized combinations of products and services that may include discrete items, subscriptions and/or associated terms and conditions, which are driven and created by both internal business initiatives and business affiliate relationships. These offerings are dynamic, highly mutable and drive the real value to the business, their affiliates and the end-user experience.