A strategic customer is a customer who can collaborate with a business on product design and has an outstanding reputation in their field, improving the credibility of the partner firm and the resulting product. This type of partnership can also make the business more desirable as an acquisition.
A customer is a person or organization who purchases products or services from a company. When the phrase strategic customer is seen, it very often precedes another noun, which is actually part of a compound word with customer. Examples are strategic customer service which is a type of customer service, not a type of customer. On the other hand, Jon Fisher – former CEO of Bharosa, acquired by Oracle Corp and now an entrepreneur and adjunct professor of business at the University of San Francisco – refers to the strategic customer as a customer who can play a particular role in collaborating with a business.
Fisher discusses the situation where a company wants to work with a customer on product design. He posts two initial goals of this venture: first, the creation of a solution tailored to the specific customer the company partners with; second, create a flexible or widely deployed solution so that it can be sold to other customers who need something similar. The way to achieve both goals at the same time, according to Fisher, is to partner with a “strategic customer.”
Fisher defines a strategic customer as one who possesses two characteristics. First, this customer should represent the target audience for product development. In addition to this, the client should possess an outstanding reputation in his field, whatever the field, such that both the partner firm and the resulting product will benefit from the association. The client’s reputation will help improve the company’s credibility, as well as help sell the product of the collaboration to others.
According to Fisher, choosing partnerships with key customers as a way to develop can lead to a third positive outcome. It can make the business desirable as an acquisition. Since buying a company includes buying its customer base, the quality of customers increases the desirability of the business as an acquisition. The close relationship that the partnership builds means that this type of customer is less likely to “jump ship” during a buyout and switch to another competitor, so the buying company can feel more confident in its prospects when a firm has worked to develop a number of strategic partnerships with clients.
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