We are honored to have Dr. Gary Oster as our guest editor for this special issue on The Customer and Innovation. Read more

The single, most important reason for any company to exist is to serve the desires and needs of customers.  Before companies may satisfy those customers, they must first identify and communicate with them. Read more

Revaluing the Customer as Community: Rediscovering Markets While Singing in Perfect Harmony
By Bramwell Osula

Traditional markets were once bustling places full of life and humanity. Local owners would cry out to passers-by to examine their wares or taste their delicacies. Shoppers were neighbors and business transactions were direct social exchanges among members of community. Today, reaching customers is a much more daunting effort for some businesses. Many of today’s successful companies, however, have found there is wisdom in tradition as they find new ways to approach customers and consider them members of a community. As Christians, we are exhorted to build relationships through the development of community so that we may value, nurture, and encourage our brothers and sisters, wherever they may be.

Attributes of Innovation: Ten Rules for Creating Values-Based Customer Service
By A. Gregory Stone

Customers are the lifeblood of every company. Customer service includes all corporate activities that support the delivery of products or services. Everett Rogers’ diffusion and adoption theory is historically used to explain the rate of adoption for innovations. The attributes of an innovation—relative advantage, compatibility, complexity, trialability, and observability—directly affect its rate of adoption. The rate of acceptance is proportionate to the degree to which each attribute is present in the innovation or product. If customer service is considered the innovation, then these five attributes may be proactively used to strategically plan for and predict customer service outcomes.

Small. The New Big.
By Seth Godin

Organizations have long prided themselves on physical growth and expansion as a sign of success. Yet no sooner than the recent collapse of the U.S. financial markets, have organizations recognized that size is less significant than the impact and magnitude of one’s ideas. Smart companies can do more with less. They are drawn to the freedom of greater control of ideas with less layers and hierarchy. In this new era of business, smaller is greater.

Many faith traditions have ably informed the process of innovation through the centuries. Christians have a unique perspective on the Source of imagination and creativity because they possess the record of God’s remarkable innovations through the millennia as recorded in scripture, a world-view that supports and encourages innovation, and innovation methods that often contrast with those of other faith traditions. Innovation is not Christian only when it deals with religious subject matter or is accomplished by a professing Christian: innovation is Christian when it is ultimately aligned with God’s purposes and methods. Scripture and the personal experience of Christians worldwide show that God uses innovation for humans to know more of Him, to communicate with Him, and to ultimately accomplish His earthly will for mankind.