Production orientation

A production orientation dominated business thought from the beginning of capitalism to the mid 1950's, and some argue it still exists in some industries. Business concerned itself primarily with production, manufacturing, and efficiency issues. This viewpoint was encapsulated in Say's Law which states Supply creates its own demand. To put it another way, If a product is made, somebody will want to buy it. The reason for the predominance of this orientation is there was a shortage of manufactured goods (relative to demand) during this period so goods sold easily.

The implications of this orientation are:
*Product line(s) were narrow
*Pricing was based on the costs of production and distribution
*Research was limited to technical product research
*Packaging was designed primarily to protect the product
*Promotion and advertising was minimal, limited to raising awareness of the existence of the product
*Consumers were interested in simply being able to get the product, less in its quality

Some examples:

• The classic example of where it was widely considered good practice is the early car industry, exemplified by Henry Ford’s Model T. At this time this was an industry-wide philosophy and applied in many industries.

• Today, examples can be found in individual companies rather than whole industries simply because the competition is so great. It could be argued that some elements of the production orientation can be found in the electronics industry where firms are manufacturing large quantities of low cost, low price goods for which they know there is a market. This may be helped by the fact that it is usually much cheaper to replace an electronic product than it is to fix it.

• Philip Kotler argues that the assembly line techniques have been transferred to services like government benefits offices, in which they deal with people very efficiently, but the interaction may not be to the full satisfaction of the customer

References

“Marketing Management: Analysis, Planning, Implementation and Control”, Philip Kotler, Prentice Hall, 1997 p.17

ee also

*marketing
*marketing orientation
*brand orientation
*personal marketing orientation