The business strategies of most companies in India are marked by the supply-sided, tunnel vision of the market and obsessively competitor-centred approaches.

Customer in the Boardroom highlights the need for companies to embed customer centricity into the heart of their business strategy development process if they are to continue to grow profitably and secure their future.

Rama Bijapurkar presents a compelling treatise on how to develop business strategy around the world of customers rather than the world of competitors. She draws a sharp distinction between the ‘market = industry size’ and the ‘market = customers with needs’ bases for developing business strategy.

The book proposes Customer-Based Business Strategy (CBBS), a lucid and simple framework for the successful assimilation of customer-centricity in business strategy.

The framework provides a blueprint for defining and choosing market segments, developing rivalry propositions, creating value delivery systems, reading markets and gaining customer insight, reading macro trends, strengthening strategy foundation analyses, removing organizational roadblocks and more.

The book draws on the author’s vast experience in consulting and teaching and places equal emphasis on both the theory and the practice of bringing the customer into the boardroom.

The text is replete with anecdotes, examples and cases from India Inc. and is equally applicable to both B2B and B2C businesses. Written in the author’s inimitable and accessible style, the text is an effortless and effectual read.

Within these pages exists the roadmap for developing winning businesses strategy that enables businesses to beat competitors by providing value to the customer in a way that competitors will find hard to imitate.