Marketing Strategy and Planning Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3000 words

Marketing Strategy and Planning - Essay Example Many organizations apply marketing concepts like customer focus, good value, quality service and efficient exchange mechanism for satisfying customer need and wants. Organizations based on management information about customers, products, prices, competitors, suppliers and every aspects of the marketing environment are bound to move ahead. 'Marketing' belongs to marketing specialists but 'going to market' is a process owned by everyone in the organization.Due to expansion of new technologies, organizations augmented their geographical reach and could share their information about philosophy, products, and prices to their consumers. Organizations could collect information about markets, customers, prospects and competitors etc., conduct market researches and identify their focus groups. Marketers can customize offerings, services and messages to individual customers due to Internet services. Organizations can significantly improve logistics and cost efficiency while improving accuracy and services quality through the online exchange of information's, orders, transaction, payments etc. So the present information revolution pushed every organization to remain accurate in levels of production, improve their quality, pricing their products properly. Products innovation takes a close look at customers' need and preferences and modify accordingly. Marketing takes a sweet spot in the present organizations." Marketing is too important to leave to the marketing department."(Bill Packard, Hewlett Packard, in Piercy, 1997) Marketing cannot be leave alone to marketing dept. only. Basically, Marketing deals with identifying and meeting human and social needs. Marketing is "meeting need profitably" (Kotler, 2003). Organizations must carefully monitor their customers and competitors, continuously, improve their value offerings, carefully define the target market and value proposition and take a long term view to satisfying customers, stockholders, employees, suppliers and channel partners. The most important marketing definition given by the American Marketing Association (1995) provide us the complete marketing management process i.e. "Marketing (Management) is the process of planning and executing the conception, pricing promotion and distribution of ideas, goods and services to create exchanges that satisfy individual and organizational goals". Marketing management is the conscious effort to achieve desired exchange outcomes with target markets. The ever changing situation of the market i.e. of buyers, suppliers, customers, employees or technological could change the equilibrium of any organization. Organizations normally adjust to these changes by changing their overall all-round policies and strategies. Any process cannot be successful without proper planning. Market oriented strategic planning provides, the managerial process of developing and maintaining a viable fit between organizations objectives, skills and resources and it changing market opportunities. The aim of strategic planning in to shape the company's business, products, services and messages so they achieve targeted profits and growth. Strategic marketing deals with the bigger picture in a market which links customers, competitors and organizations ability to meet demand. Strategic marketing plan covers the following key areas i.e. Aims and mission, Analysis, Goals, strategies, objectives timescales etc. To define mission, organization should address Peter D rucker's (1973) classical questions: What is our business Who are the customers What is of value to the customer What will our business be What should our business be Successful organizations continuously raise these questions and answer them thoughtfully and thoroughly. Strategic marketing planning could be based on different strategic models such as Boston Consulting Group (BCG) model and General Electric Model (Kerin, Mahajan, Varadrajan, 1990), PESTLE and SWOT analysis, Porters five forces model, Core Competency model, Porters