Market and technological forces are dramatically changing today's competitive environment. Mass production of identical products and business models followed by industries in the past are no longer viable in many sectors. Market niches continue to narrow. Fashions and customer preferences shift literally overnight. Customers still demand products with lower prices, higher quality and faster delivery _ but want more of those products customized to match their unique needs. This is a new paradigm, posing immense challenge to both marketing and production functions.

Explaining marketing myopia, Ted Levitt mentioned that a customer looking to make a "half an Inch hole" has a need to create a "half an inch hole". But he is not necessarily your customer for a "half an inch drill bit".

Drawing parallels, it may not be out of place to look at "Demand Chain Management" instead of "Supply Chain Management" since the word "Supply" has "Product Focus", while the word "Demand" is customer-need focused. (Perhaps, in the years to come, we may see books written as "Demand Chain Management".)

We know that the marketing concept has evolved from production concept to product concept to sales concept and then finally to marketing concept. The marketing concept has further moved into societal marketing concepts, i.e., strategic concept and holistic concept, wherein the customer is considered in a broader context of the external environment, with focus on various stakeholders.

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