Essay - Consumer Centered Recent Article Espoused the Statement 'Effective Doctors and...

Consumer Centered recent article espoused the statement "effective doctors and teachers listen to people they serve" (Pettit, 2008, pg. 234). If this statement is true, then it ***** an excellent example of a service provider becoming consumer-centric, or centered around the consumer. The question is, are physicians, other medical providers ***** teachers the only ones to be concerned with this trend towards ***** centered activities, ***** ***** other firms and industries following their footsteps?

Some, if not all, ***** Singapore's manufacturing plants might provide the answer. Singapore is a sm***** South Pac*****ic isl***** near Malaysia. The country boasts over 8,000 manufacturers and plans to double that within the next 12 years. How does an isl***** country barely ***** size of California draw so many manufacturers to its shores? "The secret ***** ***** success, in a nutshell, is customer-driven product development" (Blanchard, 2006, pg. 7). Accord*****g to the Blanchard article, a recent ********** of the island found that most of the manufacturers were singing ***** same song and that it was a tune ***** the American automakers haven't even been humming. ***** writes "The U.S. auto industry...knows everything it needs to know about Japanese production methods, and yet the Detro***** Three are still in trouble. "Why? Because of their products. Product development is what interests the consumer" (Blanchard, pg. *****). Perhaps the ***** should take note.

***** toy manufacturer does an ***** job of marketing to the consumer. Mattel uses ***** ongoing tracking program in its efforts to sell more Barbie dolls.

The last decade has seen over 40 differently featured Barbie dolls for sale in approximately 140 countries. Recently ***** discovered ********** no longer had to change the features of Barbie (at least in Asian countries) because "market test*****g led an official from Mattel ***** proclaim: "Blond Barbie sells just as well in Asia as in ***** U.S." (Cross, Smits, 2005, *****. 874). Now it is possible for children almost everywhere ***** the world to be happy with ***** new Barbie *****. That ***** a fine example of consumer-centric activities.

References

Blanchard, D.; (*****) Are your *****st practices getting the job done?, Industry Week, Vol. 255, No. 12, pg. 7

Cross, G.; Smits,G.; (2005) Japan, ***** U.S. ***** the globalization of children's consumer culture, Journal of Social History, Vol. 38, No. 4, pp. 8*****3 - 890

Pettit, M.L.; (*****) An analysis of the doctor-patient relationship using Patch Adams, The Journal of School Health, Vol. 78, No. 4, pp ***** -