Problem recognition and specification

Abstract

In the preceding chapter it was argued that accelerating technological change and increasing international competition have resulted in the need for a radical re-orientation in the conduct of business. No longer can producers depend upon natural population growth to create an ever-expanding market for basic goods and services largely undifferentiated from one another. Today’s consumer is better educated, better informed and better off — all of which encourage much greater discrimination between the relative merits of products in both direct and indirect competition with one another. Consumer sovereignty means that we cast our money votes daily in the market place and the consequences for the producer who has neglected to capture the precise nature of his prospective customers’ needs is that he will secure few, if any, votes leading, inevitably, to failure of the firm.