Marketing plans represent a very modest cost relative to the magnitude of the results of successful marketing operations. The necessity for good planning increases as the difficulty of marketing increases. There are numerous indications that the present trend toward higher costs of doing business and greater competition in each marketing area will increase rather than diminish. The marketing executive who has the foresight to see where he wants to go, the ability to determine the best way to get there, and who takes the trouble to write it all down in a marketing plan, is very likely to achieve the success in the market place he is seeking.
And if, in spite of these arguments, you do not consider it worth while making a marketing plan, there is one important point you must accept. It is that in making such a decision you are saying either that changes in the marketing environment are unlikely to occur and to carry on as before is therefore satisfactory, or that changes may occur but you will be able to react to them quickly enough when they do occur. Either assumption is very dangerous.
It may be that it was possible to manage without a marketing plan in the past, but as the pace of technical development increases and as competition becomes more sever; it will become less and less possible.