The role of marketing in engineering

Marketing concentrates on the customers´ wants and needs and so emphasises it as an essentially human centred activity. Engineering involves the application of scientific principles in order to develop new things or solve problems. The challenge facing engineers is to understand the `softer´ issues essential if new products are to satisfy customer wants and needs. Engineering and marketing interact primarily in the product development and product life cycle management elements of marketing. The author concentrates on these areas. The role of marketing in technology is continually to relate the scientific activity to the ultimate user. Through disciplined techniques as practised by marketing professionals it is possible to improve the new product development process. With ever faster advances in technology and shorter and shorter product life cycles the relationship between engineering and marketing needs to become closer in order to ensure the survival of the enterprise