Marketing Strategy for Small- to Medium-Sized Manufacturers

Review of Product Management Practices

The widely held notion that manufacturers know their costs and margins and have good information about competitors and insights into their markets is not reflected in the findings about companies’ product management practices. The following summary shows that most companies operate without reliable cost data that can inform pricing, that perceptions about competitors most likely derive from anecdote since they do not formally generate information about competitors, and that few know where to go to find new customers.

These findings support the contention in Chapter 1 that many SMMs operate in the dark due to lack of good strategic information about costs, margins, and pricing, about customers, markets, ...