Ouverture de 'Market-Driven Management and Global Markets - 1'

The serious financial crisis that has hit the ‘Western’ world will generate long-term effects and the emergency measures adopted by the more responsible Governments to offset the credit paralysis (support to the mortgage market, public investment in key sectors, incentives to mass consumption, etc.) will take years (at least two to four) to produce positive consequences in the real economy of domestic and international markets. Globalisation and new competition boundaries thus force companies to adopt a new ‘philosophy of market-oriented competitive management’ (‘market-driven management’), which reformulates the traditional marketing management approach, introduced in the 1950s by Alfred P. Sloan of GM. In fact, marketing management presuppose an understanding of demand (and above all of its segments). With market-driven management on the other hand, market orientation helps to identify a temporary competition space, in other works a ‘demand vacuum’, which must be maintained highly unstable, by constant innovative proposals. In global, over-supplied markets, where consumers are increasingly voluble and disloyal, market-driven management is very attractive because it favours: 1. activities focused on the profitability of competition, rather than on mere customer satisfaction; 2. market policies based on innovation and competitive pricing; 3. and finally, even very short-term performance metrics.