New Customer, New Business Environment: Importance and Limitations of Relationship Reengineering in Small and Medium Enterprises

Abstract

 This study aimed to identify the importance of re-engineering the relationship with the customer in small and medium enterprises, by activating the relationship marketing strategy, in light of a new environment that resulted from the growing phenomenon of globalization and the subsequent changes in the economic environment, the information and communication technology revolution, and the change in the enterprise's management vision of marketing. The development of the customer's desires or the emergence of what is called the new customer. The study relied on the analytical descriptive approach, and concluded that adapting to the new environment requires small and medium enterprises to saturate the culture of the market, consolidate the culture of the customer in the entreprise, and re-engineer the relationship with him. This new engineering is mainly conditioned by the existence of mutual values between the enterprise and the customer. However, activating this approach faces a set of difficulties, some of which are related to the enterprise itself, while others are related to the customer.