Customer information utilization in business-to-business markets: Muddling through process?

Despite of the empirical evidence that shows that customer information utilization may improve a company's customer and business performance, customer information utilization is underdeveloped in many companies. This research contributes to the understanding of customer information generation and utilization in business-to-business companies. Based on findings from field interviews, the authors propose that the process of generating and using customer information tends to follow Lindblom's (1959) successive-limited comparison or muddling through method. The muddling through method emphasizes small incremental changes, building up from the current situation, and shorter term orientation. Authors suggest that companies should balance their customer information utilization efforts by using both short-term and long-term methods when developing customer information generation and utilization.