**1. Introduction**

#### *P. F. Drucker:*

'*The customer is the foundation of a business and keeps it in existence. He alone gives employment*' [1].

The beginning of the twenty-first century is characterized by unprecedented growth in globalization due to the rapid distribution of information, made possible by modern information

© 2016 The Author(s). Licensee InTech. This chapter is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. © 2017 The Author(s). Licensee InTech. This chapter is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

technologies. Numerous spheres of human activity shift in relation to the development of new technologies, the dawn of new economics and the growth of competition due to rapid fluctuations in the cycles of boom and crisis. In recent decades, development has gradually changed from a curved or spiral path into the reverse, the unexpected and almost unpredictable. According to Drucker: '*There is only one certainty: the future will be different from what we have today*' [1].

Turbulence, chaos and discontinuity, as manifestations of the current global world, bring new views on the measurement and management of corporate performance. Current conditions place more importance on non-financial indicators, which, in connection with financial indicators, can better identify the conditions influencing changes in the parameters of corporate performance. The new direction of corporate management, oriented towards performance, is associated with the transition from static models to dynamic models, which react flexibly to changes in the business environment. A holistic interdisciplinary approach to corporate management plays a significant role in this process.

The introduction of new technologies enabling rapid production growth and a decrease in the price of products and services easily increases the excess of offer over demand. This increases pressure on competition, resulting in a battle over markets and new customers. Besides cost and quality, time becomes an important factor in this competition. The global economic environment, as we have known it over the last decade, has led to the individualization of industrial products in order to correspond to customer wishes and, at the same time, to a shortening of the life cycle. Such products also include automobiles.

Changes in the requirements for industrial products are related to the transition from classic large-scale production, producing standardized products to new production conditions of value for the customer, able to adapt to customer demands and individual needs. In the surroundings of global competition, it is very important for a company to measure customer satisfaction in order for the conditions for stable production growth to be created. Under these changes, corporate management style and management skills must also change.
