As companies aspire to increase growth and profitability against a backdrop of marketplace conditions, enhanced marketing, development and investment capabilities and approaches are critical.

Unprecedented developments pose both obstacles and opportunities. Customer behaviour continues to evolve, and despite their best intentions, companies struggle to coordinate their efforts across project development, product and channel lines and to fully understand their customers segments and preferences.

In a mature, cyclical industry, most Industrial manufacturers have tried to boost financial performance in the usual ways: incrementally improving their efficiency and growing their revenues, mainly through acquisitions and investments in R&D. But companies today are finding that this is not enough to set themselves apart from competitors. In a slow-moving industry, old problems call for new approaches.

Three ways to get better

The biggest single success factor in the Industrial manufacturing industry is product portfolio. But whether they produce commodities, specialized chemicals, or a diversified mix, most companies can improve performance by adjusting to changes in three areas:

	Purchasing and cost management.
	Industrial manufacturers must first recognize the real cost of serving each customer and be prepared to lose an unprofitable
	Sales and marketing.
	In addition, Industrial manufacturers must understand the economics of their customer's business. With that understanding, they can tailor their product offerings, quality standards, logistics, or other services to reduce the buyers' total cost of ownership, without sacrificing their own margins.
	Operations.
	Industrial manufacturers could do far more to improve the efficiency of plant operations. For example, even the best plants' uptime – the number of available hours that machines are running – is generally under 80 percent. By adopting new lean operating and management systems, and engaging shop floor employees in the improvement process, companies can transform their operations into a world-class production system with significant improvements in cost, quality, and efficiency.

We rarely find that a company does more than half the things that it could to improve performance. They need to spot the trends, search out programs and tools that do the job, and apply them in comprehensive ways.

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