You're facing a surge in product demand. How do you keep stakeholders satisfied?

Assessment of market trends is critical, Collect as many data points as possible and use your Market connections, get a measure of medium to long term demand scenerios, time horizon should be 1-5 years. For example in case of automotive industry, check out how many new launches are planned in next 2-3 years, which are the possible upcoming technology changes on which OEMs are working & how are you placed for these changes. You need to assess if you have the technology and R&D which could meet the upcoming market trends or not because otherwise just investing capex will not help because your product portfolio may go outdated soon. Once your order book looks reasonably assured for medium to long term then you can go ahead for capex planning.

To manage a surge in product demand and keep stakeholders satisfied, start by enhancing production capacity and streamlining processes. Communicate transparently with stakeholders about expected timelines and any potential impacts. Implement a priority system to ensure key clients and high-demand products are addressed first. Optimize inventory management to balance supply and demand effectively. Regularly update stakeholders on progress and any changes in delivery schedules. Ensure robust quality control to maintain product standards despite increased volume.

To keep stakeholders satisfied amid an increase in product demand, I would start by establishing clear and regular communication. This would include updates on production capacity, timelines, and any challenges that may arise. Next, I would work on optimizing production processes and coordinating with suppliers to ensure that inputs are available. Additionally, it would be important to involve stakeholders in discussions about expectations and priorities, ensuring their concerns are heard and addressed. Finally, I would monitor performance and stakeholder satisfaction metrics to make adjustments as needed and ensure that expectations are met.

It's tricky, first you need to be very sure if the demand surge is sustainable. Once all the market intelligence is applied, there are two scenerios; 1) If the demand surge is for short to medium term, then better to identify bottleneck operations & drive for productivity improvement & plan for short capex cycle for intermittent operations to partially improve the capacity even if it means not meeting the last 5-10% of the sales opportunity but you will be able to utilise the capex cycle to its fullest and will not face unutilized capacity issues once the demand cycle comes back to normal. 2) If demand surge is sustainable then also follow step no 1 because it takes time to scale up the capacity and in parallel invest for full capex cycle.

Plan your calendar with customer and have regular meetings at fixed interval. Let your customer know that you value them via turning up for physical meeting. Make sure to highlight the support you have done for customer criticalities recently, maintain database of all the forecasting and deliveries. Present the trend to customer and don't be afraid to raise your concerns if you see big gap in demand vs actual. Sometimes customer sees the big picture only in terms of total budget vs revenue but they miss out to recognise the variations with in models which haunts supplier in big way. By educating customer regularly on these variations, you will be able to sensitize them and they will be mindful during internal reviews of your concerns.