Saturday, 31 July 2010 22:25
What Does My Customer Want?
One of the essential elements of the society is commercial company. The company, which is generally considered that serving for its own profit, mostly serves to the society. Unless the company creates benefits for the society, it cannot find any customers for its products, no matter which target and organizational structure it has.
Consumer shall not buy the supplied product itself but the benefits of the product. The companies, which are not able to create benefits for customers, can only follow the economical fluctuations like a leaf drifting away with the wind, but not keep the control in hand. Those companies can make sales while the market is growing; however, it has to face the risk of destruction during shrinkage periods. If they are lucky enough, they will be able to overcome shrinkage conjuncture and wait for the next boom trend.
Customers constitute the foundation of the company and contribute its existence. The purpose of a successful company is consistently to create new clients. The company with a purpose of creating new clients shall have marketing and innovation as main functions.
The companies, which will be able to survive in the future, shall be marketing-oriented instead of production-oriented. The marketing function shall ensure the company to become distinct from its competitors and to grow continuously. Market-orientation means giving priority to the consumers. For this reason, the management style and operation of the company shall be changed. The executives of the market-oriented company set their employees free and support them to take more responsibility regarding their jobs. The management also focuses on market and customer needs rather than internal affairs. Such company becomes a pioneer for the other companies. It may also be able to influence the government and other state institutions, non-governmental organizations and media by means of its powerful and persuasive executives.
Marketing is not a function to be implemented via a remote control. The company enters different and various markets and tries to create new customers while growing. It is not possible to get satisfactory results without existing in the market and working hard.
Marketing usually means sales in people’s minds. However sales and marketing are different concepts. Sales start with the product and continue with market. Nevertheless, marketing starts with consumer. A qualified marketing expert never asks “What would I like to sell?” but “What does my customer require?” instead. Sufficient marketing activities also cause less sales effort.
The company shall become a persistent actor within a growing market. It has to grow, expand and change for its existence. Continuity can be reached only by means of meeting the economic requirements. For this reason, the company creates innovations. The best product shall be the product creating new customers for the company. New product offers much more benefits to consumers and that is why it is also much more profitable.
On the other hand, every innovation is not an invention. The concept of invention is used to define concrete and tangible technological developments. Nevertheless, innovations can be created in non-technical fields as well. The social and economical innovations are as crucial and valuable as technical innovations. The company executives should analyze the market requirements properly and correctly and also transform the opportunities to profitable products. As a result of this, innovation activities, which provide benefits to the customers, are as important as marketing activities.
