Exploring how to develop customer-oriented business strategies in a clothing supply chain: a study in Southern China

Understanding customer expectations is one of the keys to success for today´s clothing manufacturers. Previous studies have explained how operational performance can be improved by a better understanding of customer-perceived values. This paper presents an analysis of data collected through a questionnaire from 62 clothing manufacturers in the Pearl River Delta (PRD) of Southern China. The data collected was first classified into three groups using cluster analysis. The classification is based on how well the respondents recognize the expectations of their customers, including both industrial customers and consumers. The paper then empirically explores the characteristics of each group and how such characteristics are related to the internal operations performance; internal operations are grouped into two major types: planning processes and operational processes. The paper concludes by presenting a relationship model that can be used as a reference tool by those organizations operating in the PRD clothing industry to improve internal operations performance by enhancing customer satisfaction.