In modern Western economic history, the industrial revolution and the evolution of scientific management helped society to achieve other important goals and turned relationship thinking into a secondary issue. A mass-market orientation and the establishment of the middle-man in distribution channels, as well as specialisation and the division of labour, became top priorities. The dominance of the highly management-oriented marketing mix approach to marketing from the 1960s onwards, has not allowed for a relationship perspective either. This article postulates six key aspects of a successfully implemented relationship marketing strategy: three strategic issues (service business orientation, process management perspective, partnership and network formation) and three tactical issues (direct customer contacts, customer databases, customer-oriented service system). Overall, relationship marketing is seen as a philosophy rather than a departmental function. A transition curve is described for getting from the second to the first.