The Marketing Intelligence Review is a quarterly that deals with professionals who have the responsibility of making strategic decisions in their companies. The pages of this publication intend to become a forum for debate and, above all, for analysis and investigation concerning the customer as a figure, and that figure’s repercussions on business management.
From these pages, we want to bring our customers closer to the current World of Marketing and Customer Strategy, a discipline in which Daemon Quest is a pioneer in Spain. Since its creation, the company has filled a large gap in the field of information analysis and business management, and it has demonstrated how important customer knowledge is to any company’s success.

In this first issue, we analyze the viability of orientation towards the customer as a critical aspect for companies. On many occasions this matter has been treated as part of a new management trend that, as with all fashions, reaches its culmination and then fades away. This is not the case. As opposed to theories that lean towards returning to focusing on the product and sales, those that opt for the customer have proven themselves as the necessary starting point for the proper management of any organization that wants to maintain real growth possibilities, both in the short and long terms.

In the hands of consultants and software manufacturers, the term “CRM” and the technology associated with it have become the new panacea which has been used to convince companies the world over that the solution to their problems lay in these applications. However, Daemon Quest data shows that the mistaken focus of these implementations have led to a 70% failure rate in CRM projects.

Technology has provided a significant advance in the field of customer knowledge, and it has without a doubt opened new, previously unknown possibilities, but it is not a solution, per se, to the problem of information overload. We must not place the blame for this situation on ERP manufacturers or systems integrators, because the mistake has been due to those who have lied to companies, assuring them that, without the need for a cultural change, it was possible to orient the company towards the customer by means of a software package that also needs expert personnel to update, maintain, and take maximum advantage of the technology. The proposed solution to this frustrating and extremely expensive problem is outsourcing customer data analysis, which allows companies to obtain information that is prepared for decision-making, without large investments.

Apart from this study, you will find detailed information about a practical case study of the company Tesco, which was able to emerge from a serious market crisis thanks to a policy of orientation towards the customer. In the “Facts & Figures” section, we highlight the principal conclusions of a new report from the University of California at Berkley, about the volume of information produced annually in the world. Finally, we gather the most noteworthy news from the Marketing and Customer strategy sector, recommend some of the most interesting reading on this subject, and list several key professional quotes in this year’s opening issue.
I extend a warm welcome to this publication, and I trust we will be able to continue peaking your interest and attention in the following issues.

Juan José Peso-Viñals
Daemon Quest Partner and Professor at the Business Institute (Instituto de Empresa)