The idea that marketing is a key factor in superior organizational performance is not new and substantial research now demonstrates that a market orientation is the bed rock of company performance. This has been demonstrated in both manufacturing and service industries including the professional services. However few firms seem to adopt the idea of marketing holistically.
To tackle this issue requires a process that must be undertaken by various parties within the firm. Firstly, marketers need to make clear that promotion is only a very small part of marketing and that a market orientation (note the use of the word market as opposed to marketing-this is not just semantics) is a much broader concept that entails an organizations posture to the market. This includes the type of customers the organization will serve and with what kinds of services, how it will maintain relationships with its existing clients and attract new ones, and crucially, what type of people should the firm hire and how to retain them. One of the challenging aspects of organizations today is that not only are they competing for new customers, they are very frequently competing to attract and retain talent. As one well known professional once put it ‘my most important assets walk out the day and go down the lift everyday’. Senior staff within an organization must take responsibility for the strategic direction of their firm and assign resources to understand and build marketing capability. They must take the lead in communicating the need for a strong customer centric organization and break the resistance and apathy that has so often gripped incumbents by harnessing forces for change.
Marketing is as much a mind set as anything else, it is an organizational culture that should pervade the entire organization and people within a firm should realize that any organization is a customer satisfying entity. Since the ‘re-birth’ of the marketing concept prompted by the writings of such people as Frederick Webster in 1988, marketing has once again been placed as an important consideration for organizational performance, and hence has caught the attention of senior management in many businesses that are typically not considered prime prospects for marketing (such as non profit groups, governmental and quasi governmental bodies, and religious organizations). Even the bastions of the educational sector have taken on board some of marketing’s trappings.
This is good and bad. There is a substantial difference between the trappings of marketing (such as having a person designated as a marketer) and the substance of marketing, which is concerned with the value that is created for the customer. One may use the analogy of promotion orientation and market orientation to gain a better understanding of the difference between trappings and substance.
A promotion orientation takes the perspective that the organization will sell what it has and that persuasive communications are the key to marketing success. This orientation takes an inside out perspective and is a short term tactical approach to marketing that is unlikely to be sustainable in the longer term as customers no longer want to buy what you are selling and in the form you offer it. The trappings of marketing are not necessarily unimportant but in isolation do not make up what marketing is and means.
In contrast, the substance of marketing is analogous to what is known as a market orientation. This is not the same as a marketing orientation and the difference is more than semantic. Marketing orientation places the emphasis for marketing in the function of the marketing department and hence artificially separates marketing activities from the rest of the organization. It also carries the negative associations of the term marketing that so often seem to exist in the minds of organizational members. A market orientation can be defined according to the two seminal works in this area by Kohli and Jaworski and Narver and Slater. These academics (Jaworski is now a consultant at Monitor Group) have done much to operationalize the implementation of the marketing concept in the form of market orientation.
According to Kohli and Jaworski (1990):
‘market orientation is the organization wide generation of market intelligence pertaining to current and future customer needs, dissemination of the intelligence across departments, and organization wide responsiveness to it’ (p.6)
According to Slater and Narver (1995):
‘a business is market oriented when its culture is systematically and entirely committed to the continuous creation of superior customer value’ (p.22)
In addition, Narver and Slater (1990) state that market orientation consists of three behavioural components of customer orientation, competitor orientation, and inter-functional co-ordination.
There are several key points to take from these definitions. Market orientation is both a culture (values and beliefs about customers, a business philosophy) and a set of behaviours. That is, there is a difference between accepting the marketing concept and implementing it. Moreover, the responsibility of responding to market needs falls on the entire organization and not only on the marketing function. Empirical support for the market orientation construct is strong both in Asia and the western world as organizations that exhibit higher degrees of market orientation show business performance levels above their peers. Organization wide action is the key to satisfying customers and an understanding of a customer’s entire value needs is what we mean by the substance of marketing. Trappings count for nothing if you have chosen the wrong value. Customer value migrates and pushing what you have will not provide long term profit driven sustainability. Innovation is a key word and this consists of a combination of market driving and market driven management.
I Marketing Culture – what it looks like
It should be clear now that adopting a marketing culture is not about the marketing function or sales team. It is about a firm wide commitment and adoption of the belief that clients and client value should be at the heart of the firms activities and processes. In other words, marketing is ‘how we do things around here’, it is an organizational culture. More formally, organizational culture can defined as a shared pattern of beliefs and behaviour that are both explicit and implicit.
Research by Morgan, Foreman and Poh (1994) state that the 4 major hurdles to implementing a marketing effort are:
- Ensuring all staff are trained in the fundamental advocacy of marketing in satisfying customer needs
- Recognizing the need for an integrated marketing approach using grounded market intelligence on which optimal decisions should be made
- Firms top management and partners providing a consolidated commitment to marketing
- Active involvement at all hierarchical levels in the formulation of marketing plans so that successful implementation can be enhanced
One can see from such requirements it is not simply a 1-2-3- step process, rather it requires attitude and behaviour modification. This highlights the very important fact that instilling a marketing culture is as much a management and leadership issue as a marketing one. One cannot expect a firm wide adoption of the marketing concept without top management support and strong leadership. What firm is going to change its structure to a client centered without it being pushed through by the most senior people within the firm? The lack of expertise can be overcome with outside help as well as the hiring of marketing professionals. These professionals can act as change agents or catalysts for the changes that are needed with the support of top management.
Most successful marketing efforts ensure that somebody within the firm has overall responsibility for the marketing function. This is usually with the appointment of a marketing director or manager. Moreover, adopting a marketing culture requires integration of people and information across the entire firm and at all levels. This will not happen by itself and certainly cannot be the sole responsibility of the marketing department. Another area that comes up is the coupling of marketing and sales. In some firms it is deemed the same thing, in others they are separate departments. Marketing sets the tone for sales. In other words, marketing creates the right culture and sets the strategic direction of the firm in terms of markets the firm should serve and the services it should provide. Once you have a good understanding of these issues the firm should be more be able to sell effectively. Sales without marketing is like shooting in the dark, you will hit your target every now and then but with a huge waste of resources and in the process you will probably upset a number of potential customers by trying to sell them something they neither need nor recognize the value of.
II Firm Structure, Marketing Culture & Performance
As has been stressed a number of times here, marketing is a process and business philosophy that requires a fundamental change in the way senior leaders think and act. In order to fully embrace a marketing culture, a firm must have the right foundations upon which it can act and respond appropriately to the changing demands of customers and the business environment in general.
When one considers the ideas of team based structures or market oriented eco systems one must consider the fundamental change that must occur within an organization for this to be successful. Going back to the initial definitions of market orientation cited at the onset of this piece, it becomes apparent that in order to set up and implement effective teams, a firm must become deeply engaged in target market segments and develop an in depth understanding of the needs of the customers within these segments. However, information collection is only the starting point, generation and dissemination of this information that is actionable and implanted across organizational departments such as product development, service and sales etc will determine whether such an effort is worthwhile. This idea of cross functional coordination is not unusual but is often poorly executed. Overcoming fiefdoms and the idea that my department is my department is absolutely vital if the development of a true marketing culture is to progress. The benefits of using such teams are many. Organizational members share and develop news skills whilst developing a big picture view of their customers business as well as their own. Additionally, the inter functional coordination necessary enhances organizational communication to the point where using market intelligence becomes the basis for decision making and innovation. In essence, market oriented teams become marketing teams and if you can develop the skills necessary to implement such practices effectively, you will have developed competencies that keep you ahead of your competition.
III Conclusion
Marketing and management become strongly intertwined when discussing the ideas of implementing a marketing culture. It is a firm wide effort that as much as anything requires a basic change of attitude amongst firm seniors that must have strong leadership to effect such change. Crossing these organizational barriers is never easy but one will reap the rewards if one is prepared to take the risk. Firm leadership is crucial and in many ways can be described as marketing leadership. Marketing is so fundamental to a firm that thinking of it as something separate or as something you do when business is slow is a sure fire way to lead your firm to extinction.
Strategy & Competitiveness 