Please provide a response to this discussion post.

1. Customer relationship management is a critical approach to retaining customers and sustaining revenue. Customers may return to a business for financial and nonfinancial reasons. Financial reasons could entail sales discounts and financial rewards initiatives. Nonfinancial reasons include customer service, brand recognition, and convenience. Customer satisfaction with a transaction does not always have a direct correlation with customer retention; the customer could be satisfied with the purchase anywhere but the relationship formed with the transaction assists in customer retention (Simanjuntak, Putri, Yuliati, and Sabri, 2019). With increased competition, customer relationship management needs to be influenced by an effort to form a relationship and make the customer feel desired. In my career in manufacturing, our transactions are infrequent due to selling high-dollar products. Each sale is very important and a missed sale could be a detrimental mistake. Our sales team often engages with customers on leisurely trips and follows up with customers regularly to maintain a relationship.

2. Cycle time and cycle management are critical assessments of production response to consumer demands and manufacturers' capabilities (Gunasekaran, A., 2001). Customers want new products, they want them now, and their loyalty can disappear if a competitor delivers the product first. Nonfinancial measures to reduce cycle time include improving delivery and production scheduling, cross-training employees, and recognizing waste in the production cycle (Taifa, I. & Vhora, T., 2019). An organization's ability to track progress and versatility in manufacturing is the best nonfinancial improvement to reducing cycle time. A realistic method for this improvement would be tracking nonproductive hours and overstocked/slow-moving inventory. A financial investment in operations (i.e., machinery, personnel) would significantly reduce cycle time but at an expense that might not be best for an organization.