The marketing and logistics interface

Even though the textbooks describe marketing as the management of the Four Ps  

Two factors have perhaps contributed more than anything else to the growing importance of customer service as a competitive weapon. One is the continual increase in customer expectations in almost every market the customer is now more demanding, more sophisticated than he or she was, say, 30 years ago. Likewise, in industrial purchasing situations we find that buyers expect higher levels of service from vendors, particularly as more companies convert to just-in-time logistics systems. 

Faced with a situation such as this the customer may be influenced by price or by image perceptions but overriding these aspects may well be availability  

Ultimately the success or failure of any business will be determined by the level of customer value that it delivers in its chosen markets. Customer value can be defined quite simply as the difference between the perceived benefits that flow from a purchase or a relationship and the total costs incurred. Another way of expressing the idea is  

Customer value = Perceptions of benefits Totai cost of ownership 

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