A popular belief in such companies is that customers don't really know what they want, because they don't understand the technology. These companies focus on manufacturing and operations with a myopic intensity second to none. Good management equals good cost control, high employee productivity, and above average asset utilization. Focus on becoming the low-cost producer is a common mantra. Giving customers what they want is Marketing's job.
Marketing is viewed as an overhead expense.
Costs, quality, and performance may be out of synch with what users really want to buy. These are the companies magazines like Advertising Age loves to write about, as if it's perfectly natural and sensible for a company to elevate marketing managers to the level of gods. These organizations are often internally driven, in spite of their marketing focus. Marketing is wrapped in a sort of mystique, and may be practiced in a mechanistic ritual, or formula the companies applies to every situation. Segmentation, focus groups, concept testing, blind tests, test markets, etc.