Entering the 21st Century, the marketing function remains concerned with serving customers and consumers effectively. A study proposes that just as the marketing function gradually shifted from mass marketing to segmented marketing in the 20th Century, it will increasingly move toward customer-centric marketing in the next century. In the practice of customer-centric marketing, the marketing function seeks to fulfill the needs and wants of each individual customer. The antecedents of customer-centric marketing are the increasing pressure on firms to improve marketing productivity, increasing market diversity in household and business markets, and technology applicability. On the basis of the shift toward customer-centric marketing, the authors of the study expect increased importance of marketing as a "supply management" function, customer outsourcing, cocreation marketing, fixed-cost marketing, and customer-centric organizations.