All organizations need to make strategic decisions related to their external environment. The policy should address issues such as consumers, competitors and market trends. They just have to be a more discriminating with the help they render toward other people. In this way, the policy can detect and influence changes in the business environment.
By its very nature, marketing defines how an organization interacts with its market. As a result, marketing strategies, to a greater or lesser extent, are essential to all strategic planning. Only in this way can organizations respond strategically to customer needs and business pressures. Indeed marketing can be seen as more than a functional activity. It can be accepted as a business philosophy.
Here the organization adopts marketing orientation. Success through the process of understanding and meeting customer needs. Basically, company orientation defines this basic business philosophy, shedding light on what is perceived as the primary path to success. Market orientations are now widely established in the business world, and are often seen as the 'Holy Grail' of marketers, but other business orientations are just as common.
Production Orientation: Here business success is attributed to efficient production. Emphasis is placed on mass production, economy of scale and cost control. Achieving volume and completing production schedule is the main concern of management. This philosophy has its place, but low-risk added values limit operations to assembly work.
Product Orientation: We believe that product innovation and design will bring buyers to our doorstep. Management's assumption is that our products are so good that they will sell themselves. Little or no effect on establishing exactly what the customer wants - a dangerous way! Of course, product innovation is important but it must attract the market, otherwise it risks becoming innovative for the sake of innovation.
Sales Orientation: It looks at sales volume as the main determinant of success. The focus is on aggressive sales that motivate the customer to buy. Given that the process is driven by sales goals, the short-term approach prevails when it comes to building long-term relationships. This often happens through product orientation as management tries to create demand for unwanted products.
Market Orientation: As mentioned earlier, success comes from understanding and meeting customer needs. This process starts with the customer and uses the actual customer demand to focus on the resources. Simply put, we provide what the market wants. In addition, the importance of building long-term relationships with customers is recognized. We strive to build loyalty and consistently offer high value. Awareness of competitors' proficiency and strategy is required to optimize this process.
It is not our intention to condemn product, product innovation or sales, they are important. However, a truly ‘world class’ organization understands how to marshal these elements in a consistent market leadership. Creating such a focus will facilitate the lasting competitive advantage required for prosperity.
How do we go about getting market orientation? The answer to this question can be summarized as follows:
Customer focused: Understand your customer base and respond to their needs. Treat loyal customers as assets and try to build ongoing and long lasting relationships. Regularly monitor customer satisfaction levels and perceptions. Remember, to achieve this you need to:
- Define your market,
- Effectively categorize / target customers
- Listen to customers.
Competitor focused: In the case of competitors, be careful and evaluate their objectives, strategies and capabilities. Their products, processes and operations need to be ‘benchmarked’ against our own.
Integrate marketing into the business: Marketing should not be limited to the marketing department only. Every function and person in an organization has a role to play in creating value and achieving the goal of becoming a market-leading organization, which may require fundamental changes in culture and organizational structure.
Strategic vision: Develop a long-term, market-focused strategic approach, looking at marketing as more than a series of promotional tools and techniques. This should be on the agenda of senior management, who should develop and implement a market-led strategy and define the future in terms of creating long-term value for shareholders.
Realistic expectations: You cannot be all things to all people. Expectations should be realistic and aligned with capabilities, resources and external circumstances. Trade-offs may need to be made to ensure that the focus is on value-adding activities.
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