Customer-driven manufacturing

The basic tasks of a business are straightforward - getting and keeping customers and making profits, both set within the context of the short and long term. Explicit in these is not only a need for marketing and manufacturing to work well in themselves but to work well together. Companies, however, typically fail in this provision. To move to a more competitive response in today's difficult markets requires more than co-existence, it requires a shared partnership between the core parts of the firm. Shared understanding of marketing and manufacturing's approach is the starting point. The other is building on a shared understanding of the market itself. In such a way, a move to being customer-driven starts to take shape.