Friday, October 12, 2007

Marketing Management: Week 25

Learn
We can trace the development of modern marketing through three stages

Production Era: In the early US economy, companies concentrated their talents and energies on producing as many goods as possible both quickly and efficiently. Products were often in limited supply and were sold as readily as they were available. During this era, marketing was still considered less important than production. The emphasis was on producing products not satisfying customer needs.

Sales Era: After World War 1, US market started to change. Manufacturers found their merchandise piling up in warehouses. They realized the need to move goods out of their doors and converting them to cash. They quickly realized that advertising and more aggressive personal selling were the tools to move products. These aggressive tactics were successful for a while but later consumers wanted more than the products that companies wanted to sell them.

Marketing Concept Era: Aimed at orienting a firm completely towards its customers. As such customer focus should permeate every department from production to finance to human resources.

Unlearn
In this new era, the business could not solely base on sales. I start to realized the importance of marketing and managers should not make important decisions in any area without taking marketing implications into account.

Relearn
With this new era, there are three basic propositions to modern approach of marketing.

Customer focus: Managers must shift their focus from an internal company perpective to the customer’s viewpoint. Successful marketing requires a complete understanding of buyers and their needs.

Coordination: All elements of the marketing program known as the marketing mix constitute an interrelated system and therefore the program must be viewed and planned as a whole. Also, marketing itself must be closely interrelated with other business activities.

Profit Orientation: Profit, not just increased sales, is the goal of a firm. Because customer satisfaction is the path to profitability, customer focus is the logical focal point for profit planning.

1 comment:

shah dan said...

Excellent learning points.