Formation Features of the Customer Segments for the Network Organizations in the Smart Era

Abstract

Modern network society is based on the advances of information era of Smart, connecting information and communication technologies, intellectual resources and new forms of managing in the global electronic space. It leads to domination of network forms of the organization of economic activity. Many experts prove the importance of segmentation process of consumers when developing competitive strategy of the organization. Every company needs a competent segmentation of the customer base, allowing to concentrate the attention on satisfaction of requirements of the most perspective client segments. The network organizations have specific characteristics; therefore, it is important to understand how they can influence on the formation of client profiles. It causes the necessity of the network organizations’ research in terms of management of high-profitable client segments. The aim of this study is to determine the characteristics of the market segmentation and to choose the key customers for the network organizations. This purpose has defined the statement and the solution of the following tasks: to explore characteristic features of the network forms of the organization of economic activity of the companies, their prospects, Smart technologies’ influence on them; to reveal the work importance with different client profiles; to explore the existing methods and tools of formation of key customer segments; to define criteria for selection of key groups; to reveal the characteristics of customer segments’ formation for the network organizations. In the research process, methods of the system analysis, a method of analogies, methods of generalizations, a method of the expert evaluations, methods of classification and clustering were applied. This paper explores the characteristics and principles of functioning of network organizations, the appearance of which is directly linked with the development of Smart society. It shows the influence on the Smart technologies in the development of the network economy and in the emergence of network forms of organization of economic activity. The review of the methods and modern tools of segmentation of customer base is given. The article offers the author’s interpretations of the peculiar features of client segments’ formation, specific to the network organizations.