Authors: Alkistis Papaioannou, Konstantinos Koronios, Panagiota Balaska, Georgia Yfantidou, Ioulia Poulaki

Title: An investigation of Customer oriented strategy and business performance in sport sector

Abstract

The main purposes of this study were: (1) to determine the extent to which customer oriented strategy is applied to sport businesses in the region of Attica and (2) to examine the relationship between customer oriented strategy and business performance in the abovementioned organizations as measured by satisfaction levels in relation to Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) such as profit, ROI, sales volume and market share.

The research was addressed  to all medium and large fitness clubs in the Region of Attica (180 medium and large fitness clubs, which are recognized by Association of Fitness Clubs Owners) and 180 experienced managers involved, well familiarized with complex and multidimensional processes (such as customer oriented strategy) able to respond as accurately as possible.  Responses were received from 162 managers of 162 Greek fitness clubs, reflecting a 90 percent response rate.

For the purpose of this study a 40-item questionnaire was used (developed by Whiteley 1991) focusing on customer oriented strategy. The questionnaire was translated and modified by a panel of experts in the fields of sport marketing, business management and strategic marketing, in order to provide information on how managers see themselves in terms of the customer oriented strategy process, using a five point Likert scale. The reliability of the scale was found to be α= .86. Also, the particular research approach concerned a subjective way of measuring performance. This means that managers were asked to evaluate the performance of their fitness club, in relation a) to their current years’ objectives, b) to their last financial years’ objectives and c) to their major market competitors, on a five-point Likert scale. For each one of the three bases, business performance was evaluated using four criteria; two financial KPIs (profit and ROI) and two market based KPIs (sales volume and market share). The study was a quantitative design and the analysis was exploratory in nature. Descriptive statistics and Kendall correlation were used to examine the variables’ relationship using SPSS software (version 23).

The results indicated that most of the managers considered customer orientation from “great extent” to a “very great extent” (61.1%), while 28.4% of the managers focused on it to some extent and 10.5% to a little extent. Also, the results illustrated that there were significant and positive relationships between customer oriented strategy and business performance of sport businesses in relation a) to their current years’ objectives (r = .557, p=.000), b) to their last financial years’ objectives (r = .570, p=.000) and c) to their major market competitors,  (r = .618, p=.000). The present findings are consistent with previous studies on customer oriented strategy and business performance, in the sport and service sector, and show that the extent of customer oriented strategy which managers of sport businesses applied is related to their business performance. Moreover the current findings suggested that customer oriented strategy is at the core of sport business activity, as it contributes to the viability of sport businesses (Papaioannou et al., 2018; Mondali Zadeh, 2019; Moon, Hur, & Hyun, 2019).

This study is useful in extending the concept of customer oriented strategy to the sport sector. Additionally, the outcomes may be useful for managers to further understand the customer oriented strategy process and its application in several types of sport organizations.

KEYWORDS

Sport sector, Customer oriented strategy, Business performance

JEL CLASSIFICATION CODES

L8, L83, M3, M31

References

Mondali Zadeh, Z. (2019). Determining the relationship of market orientation and brand orientation with sports clubs’ performance. Sport Management Studies, 10(52), 73-90.

Moon, T. W., Hur, W. M., & Hyun, S. S. (2019). How service employees’ work motivations lead to job performance: The role of service employees’ job creativity and customer orientation. Current Psychology, 38(2), 517-532.

Papaioannou A., Kriemadis T., Mitsios V., & Kartakoullis N. (2018). The relationship between customer oriented strategy and organizational performance in professional football clubs. Journal of Customer Behaviour, 17(3), 229-249.

Whiteley, R.C. (1991). The customer-driven company: Moving from talk to action. Addison-Wesley, Reading, MA.