We’ve all seen or heard the saying ‘consumer is god’ at some point in our lives, whether it is in the transcripts of a fortune 500 company’s meetings or at the local vendor’s, at the corner of the road. A business exists because of a customer, for if there is no one to use the product or service a firm offers, then there is no business at all.
Whether it is a B2B (business to business) transaction or a B2C (business to consumer) transaction, there is always someone demanding a product or service and someone catering to the demand by supplying the same. If there were null demand for a particular business’s service, it certainly wouldn’t survive the market.
A business needs sales to survive and grow. If consumers don’t purchase a firm’s product, the company will have to shut down. Therefore, a firm needs to ensure they remain up to date with consumer demand patterns and trends as well.
For example, if the market demands sweaters in the winter and a company aims to sell ice cream, even with the most effective, creative marketing campaigns, it will only confirm sales to a certain extent. Sure, it may work once or twice, but it is highly unusual that firms can always get away with such gimmicks every time. Eventually, consumers will purchase the sweater because that is the need of the hour.
Understanding what the customer wants is vital; it is often the only thing that matters. No matter how ingenious the idea is, if it doesn’t address a consumer’s problem or pique their interest, it won’t work out no matter how hard a firm tries.
Something else to consider, however, is the composition of a company. Yes, consumers run the business by orchestrating sales, but there needs to be something for a consumer to buy! All the work behind the scenes, before the curtains open, is what builds something extraordinary. Much credit needs to be given to the immense effort and sweat invested into the final product.
Running a business is not easy; there are ongoing hard entrepreneurial decisions that CEOs and directors need to make. Management, organisation, and planning are of paramount importance, and they need to be set in motion before executing the actual plan. This precision and sight to detail demand a lot from business leaders, and it’s a much longer process than most companies let on. So yes, the consumer is god because, without a consumer, there exists no market for a product. Yet, if it weren’t for entrepreneurs to run these businesses, there wouldn’t be firms to solve consumer’s problems. At the end of the day, they are two pieces of a puzzle, each incomplete without the other.
