Towards customer focused marketing: an empirical study of BFW

Abstract

Bharat Fritz Werner Limited (BFW), established in 1961 in collaboration with Fritz Werner Werkzeugmaschinen Ag of Berlin is today in the forefront of machine tool technology offering a wide variety of CNC machines which have acquired country wide reputation for precision, quality and reliability. These machines are in demand from many sectors of the Indian industry viz., automobile, general engineering etc., where high productivity, quality and process capability matter. In recent years the competition for BFW has shifted from domestic manufacturers to international players viz, Makino and DMG, who are setting up their operations in India. BFW also has been witnessing declining market share, drop in repeat orders, preference of buyers for imported machines and erosion of strong customer base. Objective and Methodology: The organisation needs to be more responsive to customer needs to survive in the market. This study is an attempt to bring out the 'customer voice1 as part of our business process. The methodology adopted was to conduct a field survey. Towards this end a sample of 79 firms representing wide variety in industrial segment, geographical distribution and scale of user industry was selected. Based on a questionnaire, price, non-price issues, product issues and marketing organisation were analyzed. Results and recommendations: The differences in the products and services offered by BFW and that expected by customers was brought out through various analysis. It was observed that though personal interaction was satisfactory, but the customer awareness about BFW products was low. The inferences from the survey strongly pointed two important attributes of our products viz., reliability and accuracy. Purchasing decisions of customers were largely influenced by above characteristics. It was also observed that response of BFW to technical queries and awareness activities with respect to the capabilities and performance were also equally important in purchasing decisions. To capture the changing the needs of the market, regional sales office need to be more segment focused and suitably inform the corporate who in-turn needs to be more product focused. As a result of this, management can take fact-based decisions for product improvement. To be more responsive to the customer, we suggest a computer database and customer focused cells. Continuous monitoring of the performance of competitors and use of the data to improve BFW's performance is also recommended.