Industrial-marketing programs must encompass the full range of activities needed to grow a business profitably, and often these programs neglect to cover the retention and expansion of a business with existing profitable customers.

In a global competitive environment, a lean industrial-marketing process must help to identify target markets, target customers, and target channels of sales and distribution. The program must focus on profitable growth and financial performance that matches the best-in-class global competitors. The assessment of an industrial-marketing program must include the determination and justification of new global markets with products that offer a superior performance advantage, including an attack strategy for countering foreign competition.

Whether internally evaluated by a lean initiative team, or externally examined by a consultant, the lean (quasi-kaizenevent) in an industrial-marketing program must assist manufacturers in identifying the cost to produce each product line as well as a comparison to the sale of each line item. “Industrial marketing programs help clients to track individual customer sales and profitability. The combination of these two elements must be tracked and used for profitability analysis to determine and develop specific target markets for expansion,” says Larry Caretsky, CEO of Commence CRM.

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