Investing 42
homemoney to purchasehow These islands have lost the advantages of superiority at sea, in industrialization, and in Europe's strong dependence on our exports. The maintenance of our export trade and the existence of a robust home market are indivisible. Customers everywhere with export customers as priorities are essential to Britain's survival and her declared objectives of social justice and wellbeing. Management must, therefore, face the fact that the former attitude of 'this is what we produce : take it or leave it' must be replaced by urgent concern with what the consumer really needs. It is not adventitious that in these countries where the consumer's needs have had prodigious attention paid to them there have been equally prodigious management successes. And, it must be fairly recorded, there are outstanding exceptions in Great Britain to this, generally, gloomy story, British Public taste and public requirements are changing
Peter Drucker in his exuberant The Practice of Management (Heinemann) says 'If we want to know what a business is we have to start with its purpose. And its purpose, must be outside of the business itself. In fact it must lie in society, since a business enterprise is an organ of society. There is only one valid definition of business purpose : to create a customer' This is discussed in detail in Chapter One.
very rapidly as a result of the levelling up of society. Easier credit, for example, has had a fascinating effect on how people spend their money.
In Britain one has only to talk to a publican to be reminded of the fact that what used to be spent on somewhat ephemeral items is now allocated to the payment of instalments on television sets and washing machines. This is not to present a picture of a tobacco and alcoholstarved Britain. Far from it. But it is proved that the shift from purely 'consumable goods' to 'consumer durables' is a significant factor in the public's spending. As a barmaid rather wistfully put it 'there are no really serious drinkers nowadays'.
There are, however, dilemmas for management here. Too much attention to customer requirements could result in a lowering of standards in design, performance, and service. Truly enlightened management must have the courage of its own convictions. It must be a jump ahead of public taste and requirement. It must lead rather than follow. How can managementsquare the need the compulsive, commercial need to give the consumers what they want today with what research and imaginative development indicate should be wanted tomorrow? Or, put another way, is it a matter of the lowest common multiple or the highest common factor?
The lesson for management is surely clear. It must continue to extend the field of its attention beyond the shareholders and employees to the users of its products and services. The foreman no less than the managing director must convey his enthusiasm and belief in what he is offering outside his immediate circle. Financehome