Chapter 1

Necessary and Sufficient Conditions for Increasing Sales and Profit

Most small to medium-sized manufacturers (SMMs) generally can ­produce or obtain information and data they feel are necessary to make decisions about how to grow their businesses. However, as the questionnaire data reveal and as the following case studies will show the information and data that many SMMs have are not sufficient for choosing the right combination of customers, products, and markets that will produce the most profit.

Many SMMs know who their most valuable customers are but do not know the true profitability accruing to the business from selling to them, because SMMs mainly focus only on sales volume—and having too much business from too few customers ...

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