The Marketing Orientation and the Marketing Concept
An organization with a market orientation focuses its efforts on 1) 
continuously collecting information about customers' needs and 
competitors' capabilities, 2) sharing this information across 
departments, and 3) using the information to create customer value. 
The market orientation simply defines an organization that understands the 
importance of customer needs, makes an effort to provide products of 
high value to its customers, and markets its products and services in a 
coordinated holistic program across all departments. In what we call 
the "Marketing Concept," the company embraces a philosophy that the 
"Customer is King."
The Marketing Concept is an attitude. It's a philosophy that is driven down throughout the 
organization from the very top of the management structure. The 
Marketing Concept communicates that "the customer is king." Everything 
that the company does focuses on the customer. Via the Marketing 
Concept, a company makes every effort to best understand the wants and 
needs of its target market and to create want-satisfying goods that 
best fulfill the needs of that target market and to do this better than 
the competition.
It wasn't always that way. There were other orientations that companies embraced over the years.
The Production Concept has been around for years. That concept simply suggests that customers 
prefer inexpensive products that are readily available. In effect, "if 
we make it, they will come."
The Product Concept suggests that companies that build the "better mousetrap" will gain 
favor. The thinking here is that customers want products that have 
higher quality, that offer better perfromance or do something unique.
The Selling Concept preceeded the Marketing Concept. From the 1920's until the 1950's, 
most firms had a sales orientation. Competition had grown, and there 
was a need to pursue the scarce customer. Sales could mean everything 
from sales people to advertising to public relations, but little effort 
was made to coordinate any overall marketing function. What we often 
saw in the Selling Concept was the "hard sell" and the belief that 
consumers wouldn't purchase unless they were sold.
The Holistic Marketing Concept that is embraced in the 21st century results in companies looking at 
their overall marketing efforts. This includes how their marketing 
affects society, as a whole. Marketing is also done internally 
within the company. Without customers, a company will quickly flounder 
-- thus the importance of the relationship. Holistic marketing looks 
at the connectivity of the company, its people, its customers, and the 
society in which it operates. The Societal Marketing Concept focuses on
Describe five marketing management orientation?