Issue 3, 2017

Gulakova O. V., Rebiazina V. A. Is Customer Orientation of Companies in the Russian Market Real or Declared?

Customer orientation in the emerging markets and its specifics represent a separate field within the marketing research. The purpose of this paper is to explore the real or declared nature of customer orientation of companies operating in the Russian market as an example of the emerging economy. The paper introduces the customer oriented business process original framework, developed on the basis of existing research analyses. The objective of this research is met by conducting empirical test of existence or absence of customer oriented business processes within companies. To reveal the existence or absence of customer oriented business processes, 61 indepth interviews with representatives of the companies operating in the Russian market have been conducted. The interviews have been analyzed applying a content analysis, which allows systematic study of the semantic data received from in-depth interviews. A mixed-method approach is applied to investigate in detail the specifics of customer orientation of Russian companies. The findings indicate the declared nature of customer orientation in the Russian market as the customer orientation values are often just declared by companies, but still there is a lack of customer oriented business processes needed for its real implementation. Research limitations include the limitations of the qualitative method approach. The sample of 61 companies cannot be representative for the whole general population of Russian companies. The paper provides researchers and practitioners with the insights into customer orientation specifics existing in the Russian market. This paper sheds the light on the specifics characteristics of customer orientation in the Russian market named declared customer orientation. This notion is helpful for foreign companies entering the Russian market. The previous research has shown that the customer orientation concept is not well-studied in the context of the emerging Russian market. This analysis proves that the declared but not the real nature of customer orientation exists in the Russian market. Keywords: customer orientation, business processes, qualitative research, emerging markets, Russia.

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