Applications

Not every customer can be king. Rather, their value to a company is derived from their strategic or economic benefit. It is precisely on these customers that all of a company's resources should be focused. It is often strategically insignificant and unprofitable customers that place the greatest burden on a company's structure. It is therefore advisable to carry out an analysis of the customer base to find out which customers are profitable or strategically important and which are not. The reader learns what distinguishes a profitable customer from an unprofitable customer and why, in most companies, not all costs can be allocated to individual customers in line with the causation principle. An example is used to show how the customer portfolio can be used to take stock of customers and what measures can be derived from the results.