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?