Steve Jobs, former CEO of Apple, is often quoted as saying he didn’t listen to customers. While he may have said that early in his career, he later admitted that it had been a mistake, and that his greatest successes happened when he listened to his customers. “You’ve got to start with the customer experience and work backwards to the technology,” he said. “What incredible benefits can we give to the customer?” Perhaps that’s why Apple has sold more than a billion iPhones in the past decade, one of the single best-selling tech products of all time. It is also well documented that CEO Jeff Bezos is incredibly customer focused…

Companies often confuse PR and marketing but they fulfil very different requirements: Focus – Marketing focuses on products and services and PR focuses on people and relationships. Function – Marketing activities drive sales activities and they can be aligned to discrete KPI’s and targets. In contrast PR supports an organization’s goals and objectives and is much harder to quantify. Target – Marketing works to meet customer demands to sell goods and services. PR targets a range of personas and goals that collectively support an organization’s objectives. Examples include customers, the media, employees, suppliers, the community, investors, political leaders, financial and trade analysts etc. Collateral benefits; PR drives organizational success by building…