is your company really market-driven?
we now know that being customer-oriented is only part of what it means to be market-driven. about fifty years ago, peter drucker, the management philosopher, appeared to __0__ what it means to be market-driven when he described the so-called “marketing concept”. he __21__ marketing with customer orientation. he said that to be market-driven meant always __22__ the customer first and continuously improving the value of the service to the customer. profit was the reward for creating a satisfied customer. drucker used general electric as an example of the new marketing __23__. the us company has __24__ its new product development process so that it begins with research into customers’ needs and wants, rather than by __25__ market-testing ideas which have been developed in laboratories.
unfortunately, drucker’s marketing concept __26__ strategic guidance. he described an organizational culture – a set of values and beliefs about the importance of the customer – which makes a company customer-oriented. however, he did not offer any __27__ on how to become market-driven: that is, knowing which customers to serve or how to go about serving them.
in recent years, marketing scholars have __28__ the definition of being market-driven to include not just customer orientation but also __29__ of competitors’ product offerings and the discipline of profit orientation in the analysis of product/market opportunities. this broader concept of market orientation __30__ that of customer orientation.