You wake up and one day…

Demand for your goods is at an all time high. Business is so good that you cannot provide the customer with what they need fast enough. You’re anxious as the company’s executive about how long this business cycle will last and if cap ex investment will justify itself 2 or more years forward.

This scenario of seemingly unlimited opportunity to grow revenue becomes a nightmare for some companies.

One client called their posture…order prevention… avoid answering the phone…

While this approach does not endear a company with customers, it’s all too common. Commonsense suggests there’s an opportunity to provide value in satisfying customer in such circumstances, and with even higher margins… but how?

Some suggestions for the senior sales and marketing executive:

• Develop knowledge about supply chain and when products can be reasonably made and delivered to customers> demonstrate to customers your leadership on understanding and managing the process issues;
• Know your most important customer very well > define the ideal client profile; tier their value to your company in segments and treated accordingly;

Strategies to address demand issues:

• Consolidate business around the largest worldwide customers by offering preferred contract rates for extended terms;
• Focus precisely on key account needs and issues to meet delivery expectations;
• Process these needs into ideal client profiles that might look like the following:
• Extended multi-year contracts;
• Client understands Company’s value proposition and the need of dialogue in partnership if the service provider is going to properly address their economic and business issues;
• Emphasis on delivery solutions to problem versus price point;
• Win- Win account management approach to establishing benchmarks, goals, fair pricing and incentives to achieve mutual satisfaction and benefit;
• Greater mutual business visibility to understand requirements for profitability, equipment and people, supply chain, and cap ex support for manufacturing expansion for product.

The most significant in orienting a business in a demand management scenario is a willingness to train a company’s efforts on listening to the customer, and then outlining what can be reasonably accomplished to meet the challenges.