Information and Privacy Management in Human Resource Information Systems - Research Paper Example

? Information and Privacy Management in Human Resource Information Systems (HRIS) ………………………….. College ……………………………… ……………….. Words count: 1992 Table of Contents Table of Contents 2 Introduction 3 Marketing planning 3 A Systematic approach to Marketing Planning 4 The four-phase marketing planning system 5 Seven-phase model for systematic marketing planning 6 A successful marketing planning to inform marketing decisions 8 Cases where non-systematic planning works 10 Conclusion 11 References 12 Introduction There is a growing realization among marketers that survival and success in the future especially in terms of achieving competitive advantage will come only from sound strategic planning and market preparation. Marketing planning is at the very heart of marketing management and is the culmination of managerial efforts to reconciling market forces and changes within the resource constraints of the organization (Chae and Hill, 200, p. 538). Most marketers today are experiencing difficulties with effective and systematic planning due to a number of market forces such as globalization, fierce competition among market players, radical changes in technology and changing consumer behavior. This piece of research work presents a brief study on systematic approach to marketing planning from the perspective of contemporary international marketing contexts. This paper reviews relevant literatures to critically evaluate the statement “A systematic approach to marketing planning is essential to successfully inform the marketing decisions made within a contemporary international company”. Marketing planning Planning is basically a systematized method of relating to the future (Cateora and Graham, 2007, p. 317) and therefore many literatures have considered marketing planning as all rational, incremental and intuitive processes that guides a firm’s marketing activities to its future (Greenley, Hooley and Saunders, 2004, p. 933). Dibb and Simkin (1996, p. 3) who provided a clear and systematic approach to marketing planning defined it as a systematic process that involves assessing marketing opportunities and resources, determines marketing goals and develops future plan for implementation and control. Traditionally, literatures described marketing planning as a model of logical-sequential decision making that incorporates a firm’s objectives, strategies, tactics and control. Greenley, Hooley and Saunders (2004, p. 933) pointed that this explanation to marketing planning has focused on what marketing planning decisions could be and not on how they could be made. They emphasized that marketing planning is used to pursue dynamic marketing opportunities in order to guide a firm’s marketing to its future. In today’s rigorously competitive marketing contexts, market opportunities keep on changing and hence firms need to adopt their plans with a view to pursue these dynamic opportunities. Marketing planning involves deciding on significant marketing strategies that help the firm achieve its overall strategic objectives and future goals. A marketing planning is required for each business, each product and each brand (Armstrong and Kotler, 2005, p. 59). A Systematic approach to Marketing Planning A systematic approach to marketing planning has been considered to be the most difficult of all marketing tasks since it involves bringing together all the various marketing elements in to coherent and realistic plan (McDonald, 2007, p. 9). A systematic marketing planning necessarily requires certain degree of organizational procedures and compromise between conflicting objectives. McDonald (1992, p. 5) identified ‘lack of systematic approach to marketing planning’ as one of the most difficult barriers to marketing planning. Marketers need to design and implement most appropriate planning system for their firms. As McDonald (1992, p. 14) pointed, a marketing planning system is essential to ensure that all key issues are systematically considered and to help corporate management compare diverse businesses and opportunities and to understand the overall conditions and prospects of organization. Literatures have outlined different types of marketing planning systems. Cateora and Graham (2007, p. 319) introduced a four-step planning process with a view to provide a model for international marketing planning. Strauss (2010, p. 60) delineated a seven-phase marketing planning model starting from planning and budgeting and ending with ultimate analysis and reporting. A systematic marketing planning simply refers to design, implement and coordinate a system within the firm for carrying out and controlling the marketing planning, and therefore it may vary from firm to firm. There can be a number of sub-systems for planning within the marketing domain. For instance, Percy (2012, p. 2) identified Integrated Marketing Communication as a ‘systematic marketing planning’. Similarly, marketers may consider planning of marketing-mix or marketing strategy with a systematic and formalized structure. The four-phase marketing planning system Cateora and Graham (2007, p. 319) recommended a four-phase planning system in which the marketer should initially analyze and screen environmental factors affecting the firm. Screening of the environmental factors include analyzing firm’s characters such as management, organization, financial limit, products and resources and assessing major constrains such as political, legal, economic, competitive, cultural and structural factors related to both home and foreign countries. The second phase in the systematic marketing planning is adapting the marketing mix elements such as product, price, place and promotion including advertising and other integrated marketing communication tools to the overall marketing targets of the company. At the third phase, a detailed marketing plan is developed through the major components such as situation analysis, marketing strategy, objectives and goals, marketing budgets and action plans. Finally, the marketing plan for starting up a business or developing a new product or launching a new brand will be implemented and controlled by comparing standards set for and by assessing the performance. This four-step planning model is illustrated in the diagram above. Seven-phase model for systematic marketing planning Strauss (2010, p. 59) stressed that a marketing planning process must be a systematic, strategic and well-grounded in terms of various contents to be included in the system. The first step in the model- that is planning and budgeting cycle- defines all the interfaces, milestones and marketing activities in the form of project plan and project organization. In the second phase- that is budget planning- the total marketing budget is divided according to separate segments. Strategic marketing planning is the third step in which the strategic prioritization of different products will be performed. The marketing programs for each customer segment or product will be defined in the fourth phase- program strategy. Marketing campaign such as integrated marketing communication and other promotional strategies will be defined in the fifth phase. The marketing campaign program that has been planned in the fifth stage will be executed in the next step and finally a detailed report and market audit will be prepared to outline all the sporadic marketing activities and processes (Strauss, 2010, p. 59- 63). Today, companies are operating in a highly competitive and more complex marketing environment and that is the main reason why the systematization and the programming aspect of marketing planning is an economic imperative. Since managers have to make decisions on the basis of understandings about how all the external and internal factors influence the marketing activities, they need to have a well-planned, strategic and well-grounded system for planning the marketing. A successful marketing planning to inform marketing decisions Why some literatures have given greater importance to ‘systematic approach to marketing planning’ was that a systematic planning has always been found to be very successful in yielding positive outcomes. A successful marketing plan helps marketing management successfully inform marketing decisions to the concerned stakeholders and thus to help the company achieve its objectives. For many companies, marketing planning has successfully worked whereas for many they didn’t. Literatures attempted to find the reasons why some plans worked well when some others didn’t. Kerin, Hartley and Berkowitz (2005, p. 594) described four basic reasons why some planning didn’t work. They are:- 1- Plans may be established based on poor assumptions about environmental factors, especially regarding the economic and competitive factors. 2- Planners or the marketing management team may have lost the right sight of their customer needs. 3- Data collection and writing or documenting involved in the planning process may have taken a major portion of time, and 4- Line operating managers may not often feel sense of ownership while they implement the plan. What positive outcomes does a systematic planning system yield is clearly documented in literatures. A systematic, standardized and formalized marketing planning has been found to result in serious organizational and behavioral implications for a business (McDonald and Wilson, 2011, p. 69). Since a systematic marketing planning requires a complex process and proceeding as it carries out with reviewing on objectives, strategies, programmes and budgets etc, various stakeholders and teams involved in management will be able to get proper information regarding decisions taken for marketing activities. When it comes to an international marketing perspective, certain marketing decisions are critical in terms of how the management decisions are taken and how they will be implemented. Some of the critical decisions related to international marketing are modes of entry, marketing strategies to be used in foreign country, marketing objectives and targeted customer segments in foreign country, marketing research and operational difficulties etc. Doole and Lowe (2008, p. 304) have clearly portrayed that a systematic marketing planning can help a firm satisfactorily implement the strategy, organize diverse operations and more importantly to ensure that managers around the globe respond to the challenges. They stressed that an international systematic marketing planning not only helps the management eliminate a number of tensions and ambiguities, but also to maintain cohesion among staff to ensure uniform standards, a rational global marketing strategy and to retain a unique vision among the people across the countries. As marketing planning is a behavioral phenomenon because of that it consists of adopting a system and technology, Pulendran, Speed and Widing (2003, p. 478) pointed that adoption of marketing planning system can provide for decisions making in more comprehensive, rational and objective ways and that this also leads to more appropriate allocation of resources as well as increased organizational performance. Simkin (1996, p. 41) explained why a systematic and standardized process of marketing planning can bring greater effectiveness. He advocated that where there is a system work for marketing planning, there will be better understanding of people and improved relationship among them too. This improved relationship and understanding among them increases the effectiveness and thus to cause informing marketing decisions between people in the process. In short, a systematic marketing planning is a well-designed and well-structured planning wherein all the chief executive and top management team collaboratively participate in the formalized marketing planning process. Since various management teams and executives participate in the marketing planning, this formalized planning system helps managers inform decisions to others to maintain cohesion between international staff and ensure uniform standards. Cases where non-systematic planning works Evidences show that a systematic marketing planning works well in terms of its effectiveness and outcomes. But, evidences also show that non-systematic planning too brings desired outcome and positive results. It is not a surprise that many companies and small businesses worldwide, even as multinational companies, who don’t believe in a systematic marketing planning, are highly profitable and successful in their marketing efforts. McDonald (2007, p. 16) explained it as nothing except that these businesses didn’t want change. Though non-systematic marketing planning often works in certain conditions, when the firms face fierce competition and experience radical changes in the way business is carried out, a systematic approach to marketing planning become an imperative. Evidences also indicated that a period of around three years is required for a major company for completing the implementation of marketing planning system according to a perfect design (McDonald and Wilson, 2011, p. 72). The contemporary marketing contexts are experiencing rapid change. Within the duration of implementing such as systematic marketing plan, perhaps a number of changes and dynamic marketing strategies might have been brought in practice in the market. It means that if the systematic approach to marketing planning takes a longer time and it couldn’t still cope with dynamic marketing changes, the system again is unlikely to work. Conclusion This piece of research work has presented a brief analysis on what is a systematic approach to marketing planning and how it works if the design and implementation are properly carried out. This paper presented two examples- seven phase planning of Strauss (2010, p. 59) and four-steps international marketing planning of Cateora and Graham (2007, p. 319) and critically examined why a systematic marketing planning is an essential requirement for informing the marketing decisions within an international marketing perspective. References Armstrong, G & Kotler, P. 2005, Marketing: An Introduction, Seventh Edition, Prentice-Hall, Pearson Education, Inc. Cateora, P.R & Graham, J.L. 2007, International Marketing, Thirteenth edition, The McGraw Hill Companies Chae & Hill, 2000, Determinants and benefits of global strategic marketing planning formality, International Marketing Review, MCB University Press, Vol. 17 No. 6, 538-562. Dibb, S & Simkin, L. 1996, The Marketing Planning Workbook: Effective Marketing for Marketing Managers, Cengage Learning EMEA Doole, I & Lowe, R. 2008, International Marketing Strategy: Analysis, Development and Implementation, Cengage Learning EMEA Greenley, G., Hooley, G & Saunders, J. 2004, Management processes in marketing planning, European Journal of Marketing, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Vol. 38 No. 8, 933-955 Kerin, R.A , Hartley, S.W & Berkowitz E.N. 2005, Marketing, Eighth Edition, McGraw Hill Irwin McDonald, M.H.B. 1992, Ten Barriers to Marketing Planning, The Journal of Business & Industrial Marketing, Winter, ProQuest McDonald, M.H.B, 2007, International Marketing Planning, EJM, Emerald Back files McDonald, M. 2007, Malcolm McDonald on Marketing Planning: Understanding Marketing Plans and Strategy, Kogan Page Publishers McDonald, M & Wilson, H. 2011, Marketing Plans: How to Prepare Them, How to Use Them, Seventh edition, John Wiley & Sons Percy, L. 2012, Strategic Integrated Marketing Communications, Routledge Pulendran, S., Speed, R & Widing, R.E. 2003, Marketing planning, market orientation and business performance, European Journal of Marketing, MCB UP Limited, Emerald, Vol. 37 No. 3/4, 476-497 Simkin, L. 1996, Addressing organizational prerequisites in marketing planning programmes, Marketing Intelligence & Planning, MCB University Press, 14/5 , 39–46 Strauss, R. 2010, Marketing Planning by Design: Systematic Planning for Successful Marketing Strategy, John Wiley & Sons Read More