Identifying disruptive customers to nurture for long-term growth

Abstract

A subset of customers in a service-company's portfolio, seem unattractive to serve. Such customers neither align with the core of the company's business nor do they represent a straight-forward investment opportunity that the company aims to harvest in the short-to-medium term. However, serving such customers could lead to a significant change in the business model of the firm in the medium-to-long term and help the firm build competencies to remain relevant in the evolving business environment. The thesis proposes a framework that firms can use to identify such disruptive customers and to manage project execution with such customers. Depth interviews are used to validate the framework. Interviews are conducted with executives from firms that focus on business-to-business customers in the service industries, specifically consulting, technology and telecom.