Putting Entrepreneurship into Marketing by David Strokes - Essay Example

Entrepreneurial Marketing Article Chosen: Putting Entrepreneurship into Marketing: The Processes of Entrepreneurial Marketing (David Strokes, 2000) The article ‘Putting Entrepreneurship into Marketing: The Processes of Entrepreneurial Marketing’ by David Strokes (2000) builds on the theory that entrepreneurial marketing differs from what is talked about generally in marketing books and theories. It aims to analyze and find out ways in which the marketing concepts can be modified or made adaptable for entrepreneurial entities and how entrepreneurial marketing is important as a separate field than the ‘traditional’ form of marketing. For the purpose, the author has formed a model showing entrepreneurial marketing operations, and has compared them to the marketing theories given by marketing books, with the aid of focus groups and interviews with entrepreneurs. The author begins his argument by establishing differences between the operations of a normal company and those of an entrepreneur’s business. While his analysis of the traditional marketing approaches is correct in pointing out that they are planned, formal, and largely backed by thorough research, his views about entrepreneurial characteristics being unplanned seem questionable. It is true that entrepreneurial activities can be classified as being ‘informal’, and intuitive, but this does not imply that entrepreneurs do not make use of careful planning to run their businesses. In fact, planned processes play as important a role in the operations of entrepreneurial businesses as in those of corporate giants. According to Delmar and Shane (2003), entrepreneurs are better off using careful planning than learning through trial and error because it enables efficient utilization of already scarce resources. Hence, this distinction made by Strokes in his article appears questionable to some extent. However, the other arguments presented in the article to establish the significance of entrepreneurial marketing are stronger than the one analyzed above. The author has correctly identified the marketing-related problems of entrepreneurial businesses, including less focus on marketing operations, limited customer base, scarce resources, as well as lack of specialized skills since there is too much reliance on the owner’s competencies. By conducting focus groups of the owner-managers of different entrepreneurial businesses, he has maintained that entrepreneurs see marketing as merely a tactic to attract customers through promotion, and are not aware of its strategic meanings like fulfilment of customer needs and product development. In addition, the observation that entrepreneurial operations are more innovation oriented than customer oriented forms the strongest case in favour of the need and importance of entrepreneurial marketing. Unlike regular companies that seek customers’ wants and needs through research and then provide products that fulfil their demands, entrepreneurs are focused on producing innovative and creative products and then attempt to sell those products to customers. Here, a customer-centred approach (which forms a critical part of traditional marketing) does not seem to play a very important role since it is the entrepreneur who has to think out of the box, not the customers. Therefore, it follows that there are aspects of an entrepreneurial entity’s operations that are not covered by traditional marketing theories and text books, and that need to be taken into consideration in order to help entrepreneurs make use of this important business function. This point is very well explained by the author. One of the most important distinctions between traditional marketing and entrepreneurial marketing provided by the article is that of the marketing mix. While traditional marketing strategies are focused on the infamous four P’s (Product, Price, Promotion, Place), entrepreneurs depend largely on interactive marketing by operating in close contact with most of their customers. Strokes also holds that the entire marketing mix of entrepreneurs is dominated by promotion, that too in its simplest forms, i.e. word-of-mouth marketing. While this may be correct to some extent, here the author seems to contradict his own statement about entrepreneurs being innovation (product) focused. The article has repeatedly emphasized on the point that entrepreneurs have an innovation-centred approach and they prepare their product/service first and then attempt to sell it to the customers. Given this, it is difficult to see how the marketing mix of entrepreneurial businesses can exclude the focus on ‘products’. According to Drucker (1986), innovation plays a critical role in product development for successful entrepreneurs and hence, it seems improbable that their marketing mix would ignore the ‘product’, even if the focus on price and place is less than desirable, as suggested by Strokes. Another critical point raised by the article is the important of networking for entrepreneurial businesses. While networking does hold some level of significance in traditional marketing as well, it is even more important for entrepreneurs since they use it as an alternative to market research. Networking is not given this high a significance by traditional marketing and since it is extensively used by entrepreneurs, it needs to taken into account as well. However, it does not mean that market research is not important for entrepreneurs. Since they need to come up with innovative ideas taking into consideration customer needs, they are better off with investing some resources in research too (Sykes and Dunham, 1995). Even though most entrepreneurs cannot afford formal and extensive market research, they can make use of their networks to collect some information about the market, as suggested by Strokes, in order to be able to operate successfully and to remain flexible to external changes. This article by David Strokes caught my interest because it aims to ascertain differences between traditional marketing and entrepreneurial marketing, a concept that is yet to be explored fully. The author has been able to establish that entrepreneurial marketing is more than just traditional marketing with lesser resources (Barclays Review, 1997). It is, in fact, a function different from traditional marketing because of the various characteristics of entrepreneurial businesses, their operations, and their customers, that differ significantly from our regular large-scale public and private companies. Despite some weak arguments, the article seems to have built a strong case in favour of entrepreneurial marketing and the need to research it further in order to make operations easier for entrepreneurs. Since it has focused on ways to integrate marketing with entrepreneurship, it can help SMEs perform better by highlighting that they need to focus on all aspects of marketing and not just promotion. In addition, they should not try to imitate marketing efforts by large companies because of different business dynamics. Instead, they would be better off by realizing the specific requirements of their businesses, and then designing marketing strategies accordingly. References 1. Strokes, D. (2000). ‘Putting Entrepreneurship into Marketing: The Processes of Entrepreneurial Marketing’, Journal of Research in Marketing and Entrepreneurship, 2(1), pp. 1-16. 2. Delmar, F. and Shane, S. (2003). ‘Does Business Planning Facilitate the Development of New Ventures?’, Strategic Management Journal, 24, pp. 1165-1185. 3. Drucker, P. (1986). Innovation and Entrepreneurship. London: Heinemann Publishers. 4. Sykes, H.B. and Dunham, D. (1995). ‘Critical Assumption Planning: A Practical Tool for Managing Business Development Risk’, Journal of Business Venturing, 10, pp. 413–424. 5. Marketing and the Small Firm. (1997). Barclays Review. London: Barclays Bank Plc. Read More