The Discipline of Market Leaders book outlines the Treacy and Wiersema model. It argues that companies can develop strategy around 3 areas - customer intimacy, operational excellence and product leadership.
Some people confuse a customer centric culture as only relevant to a Customer Intimacy strategy. In other words they think that you do not need a customer centric culture if you are pursuing the other disciplines of market leaders ie operational excellence and product leadership.
We would argue a customer centric culture is a valuable foundation for each of these strategies. All of the 8 dimensions of our model are designed to use customer understanding as a driver for improvements. These improvements may be improved customer relationships (Customer Intimacy Strategy), improved products and new product success (Product Leadership) or lower prices (Operational Excellence).
The importance of some of the 8 dimensions may vary depending on the firm’s strategy. Example: if a company is pursuing operational excellence they are implying that their customers predominantly care about efficiency and cost - which is the case in many highly commoditized markets. This still requires ongoing understanding of customer needs, competitor's actions (in particular is can be crucial) and the internal enabler of strategic alignment.
To summarize my thinking on this, we see their model as a Strategy Model - which customers do we target and what do we offer them? Where as the MRI is a Culture Model - are we doing the things (behaviours) necessary to be successful with our customers across the business?