The Marketing Concept - Essay Example

THE MARKETING CONCEPT Table of Contents Marketing Orientation and Marketing Oriented Company 1 References 6 Marketing Orientation and Marketing Oriented Company There are various ways of defining marketing as a subject or concept. According to Kotler, et al. (2003) marketing has been considered as a social or managerial process wherein different groups of individuals get hold of their desired products through the creation and exchange of various products and value amongst each other. This type of definition can be considered to be a broad definition of the concept of marketing. The Chartered Institute of Marketing (CIM) has defined the concept of marketing in a different way. It suggests that marketing is a type of management process where the customer requirements are identified, anticipated and finally supplied in an efficient and profitable manner (Blythe, 2006, p. 5). Hence marketing can be considered to be consisting of a wide range of activities starting from market research to the development of a new product. Marketing is supposed to have evolved through five different phases over the past many years. They are the: a) era of trading, b) era of production, c) era of sales, d) era of marketing department, and e) era of marketing company (Perreault, and McCarthy, 2006, p. 15). The marketing company era, which is the most recent and current phase of marketing evolved as a result of the realisation of the need of different business organisations to be focused on their customers to achieve their goals and objectives. Hence, in this modern era, customer is given the highest priority in any of the marketing activities followed by the organisations. The concept related to marketing orietation is believed to have been developed at the Harvard University and in a few of the proactive and forward looking organisations during the period of the end of 1960s to the beginning of the 1970s. It has actually replaced the concept of sales orientation that was prevalent prior to this period (Talloo, 2007, p. 145). There is a substantial difference between the sales and market orientation. According to Lamb, Hair, and McDaniel (2008) these two types of orientations have been compared with each other based on five different characteristics. They are the focus of the organisations, the business activities followed by the firms, people to whom the products are being directed, primary goals of the firms, and various tools that are utilised to achieve those objectives and goals. Personnel of organisations that are sales oriented have their focus on selling the products to the customers that are already manufactured by the firms. However, in recent times most of the organisations are observed to gain competitive advantage by focussing on the external market environment. Various organisations like Dell, Inc., Southwest Airlines, and the Royal Bank of Canada have succeeded in outperforming their competitors through the market orientation approach (Lamb, Hair, and McDaniel, 2008, p. 8). A marketing oriented company can be considered as a business organisation which has its focus on the customers and their needs and wants. Companies try to identify various solutions to meet the satisfaction levels of the customers and in order to achieve this objective the organisations get involved in activities related to gaining an insight about the customers’ needs and wants through various means that includes both secondary and primary research. Most often people are found to misunderstand the concept of marketing and they associate it with advertising (Needham, and Grandfield, 1994, p. 309). However, marketing consists of various other aspects which the organisations need to be concerned with in order to have its sustainable growth and development in future. The thinking process of customers is volatile in nature and their needs and wants change in a short period of time. Hence organisations are required to be aware of those changing needs and wants of the customers and this fact makes marketing a useful concept for the companies. The marketing process is not restricted to advertising only but is about price, place and product as well. Marketing mix is in fact made up of these factors in addition to promotion. Marketing mix is emphasised by the organisations to ensure that they meet the customer needs and wants in a successful manner. Marketing mix strategy is crucial to all business organisations because it helps them to ensure that they offer the right product that is sought by the customers, right price is charged for their products, the location or place would help in enhancing the product, and effective promotional means that would ultimately lead to increase in revenues for the companies. The business organisations in the manufacturing industries were the first to show their interests for market orientation. Later this concept has been adopted by various other service organisations as well. In the recent years the market orientation concept has been adopted by various public organisations, municipalities, and states. Deregulation and various services related to it have become common amongst the public organisations. The greatest challenge for any organisation is to satisfy the needs and wants of the customers and at a lowest possible cost. The existing literature and research studies suggest that there are various benefits associated with an organisation which is marketing oriented. The organisational performance is found to have increased as a result of the adoption of market orientation concept by the business firms (Langerak, 2003; Kirca, Jayachandran, and Bearden, 2005). According to Wrenn (2007), the healthcare organisations are also found to have increased their performance because of the adoption of market oriented approach. He has pointed out the advantages of market oriented approach in various hospitals. The marketing orientation of various service organisations located in Hong Kong has been studied by Stevens, McConkey, Loudon, and Wrenn (2004) in one of their research studies. Significant differences have been observed to have existed in the way the marketing oriented firms perform in comparison with the business organisation which is less market oriented. The study suggested that marketing oriented service organisations are greater in numbers than the less market oriented firms. This suggests that most of the business organisations are looking to gain competitive advantage in the market by focusing more on the customer needs and wants and being a marketing oriented firm. Another empirical study was conducted by Mulyanegara, Tsarenko, and Mavondo (2011) to find the relationship between church participation and market orientation. The findings and analysis of the study revealed that market orientation and perceived benefits are positively correlated with each other. However market orientation has a negative impact on the church participation. Thus it can be concluded that the concept of marketing has changed drastically over the past many years. Marketing has evolved through various distinct phases or era as discussed in this study. The most recent phase is the era of marketing company. In the recent times, most of the business organisations are striving to outperform their competitors and gain competitive advantage in the market by focusing on the external market environment. Marketing oriented companies are characterised of having their focus primarily on the customers. They are more concerned about satisfying the changing needs and wants of the customers. The organisations are observed to manufacture their products in accordance with the requirements of the customers rather that finding customers to sell their manufactured products. Various examples cited in this study suggest that marketing oriented business firms have been able to increase their performance in a significant manner. Hence customers are given the highest priority by any organisation and they are constantly producing innovative products which would best suit the needs and requirements of the customers, thereby increasing their profitability and leading to their sustainable growth and development. References Blythe, J., 2006. Principles & Practice of Marketing. Connecticut: Cengage Learning. Kirca, A. H., Jayachandran, S., and Bearden, W. O. (2005). Market Orientation: A Meta-Analytic Review and Assessment of Its Antecedents and Impact on Performance. Journal of Marketing, 69(April), pp. 24–41. Kotler, P., Armstrong, J. Saunders, G., and Wong, V., 2003. Principles of Marketing. Harlow: FT Prentice Hall. Lamb, C. W., Hair, J. F., and McDaniel, C., 2008. Marketing. 10th ed. Connecticut: Cengage Learning. Langerak, F., 2003. The Effect of Market Orientation on Positional Advantage and Organizational Performance. Journal of Strategic Marketing, 11(June), pp. 93–115. Mulyanegara, R. C., Tsarenko, Y., and Mavondo, F., 2011. Church Marketing: The Effect of Market Orientation on Perceived Benefits and Church Participation. Services Marketing Quarterly, 32, pp. 60-82. Needham, D., and Dransfield, R., 1994. Business Studies. 2nd ed. Gloucester: Nelson Thornes. Perreault, W. D., and McCarthy, E. J., 2006. Basic Marketing: A Global Managerial Approach. 15th ed. New Delhi: Tata McGraw Hill. Stevens, McConkey, Loudon, and Wrenn, 2004. Marketing Orientation of Hong Kong Service Organizations: A Pilot Study. Services Marketing Quarterly, 26(2), pp. 105-116. Talloo, T. J., 2007. Business Organisation and Management. New Delhi: Tata McGraw-Hill. Wrenn, B., 2007. Marketing Orientation in Hospitals: Findings from a Multi-Phased Research Study. Health Marketing Quarterly, 24(1), pp. 15-22. Read More