Non-hierarchical Production Networks - A Strategic Option for Solving the Problem of Product Individualization in the Marketing of Investment Goods

摘要

The growing development dynamics of the markets makes a strategic re-orientation, which aims at a closer commitment of the customers, a lot more difficult. Shortened product life cycles, reduction of the manufacturing time, increased cost pressure, the globalization of the markets, as well as a growing individualization of the inquiry are keywords a publication describing the topical situation on the markets cannot dispense with. The concentration tendencies on behalf of the clients as well as the reduction of the depth of manufacture on behalf of the suppliers leads to the individualization and modularization of the delivered performances. That development forces the suppliers to adjust their product and service performances to the specific demands of their customers. Consequently, highly individualized as well as easily integrated performance packages, which are composed of moduls, develop. Therefore, the suppliers have to succeed in creating preferences on behalf of the customers by increasingly specializing their performances. In the single case, this leads to the customer-individual configuration of the added value chains of the suppliers.