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Topic: Student Questions

Marketing As An Organisation Philosophy?

Posted by Anonymous on 2/2/2009 at 4:05 PM ET 125 Points
we had a debate in lecture whether organizations should have a marketing department or should it be an organization philosophy?? Since C Gronroos stated that "The psychological effect on the rest of the organization of a separate marketing department is, in the long run, often devastating to the development of a customer orientation or market orientation in a firm"
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  • Posted by wnelson on 2/2/2009 at 5:48 PM Accepted
    A separate marketing department - as in separate from the rest of the company and with a different cultural orientation than the rest of the company does not make sense any more than you'd want a separate manufacturing organization with a separate cultural orientation or a separate finance organization with a separate culture. The company vision, mission, and culture should permeate through the organization and be uniform - and it is for "good companies."

    Given a company with a unified vision, mission, and culture - then a separate marketing department as a function - dedicated to marketing of the entire corporation and its products/services really depends on the nature of the company's operating environment. If the environment is fairly steady without many changes in customer base and competitors, then a functional orientation with a company marketing department might make sense. If the company is in a tumultuous customer base, competitive environment, and government environment, then a different organization structure - perhaps like a product line orientation with marketing as part of the product line makes more sense.

    I believe the assessment that the "psychological effect of the rest of the organization of a separate marketing department is, in the long run, often devastating to the development of customer orientation or market orientation in a firm" is a comment on a badly commissioned company - where the vision and mission are not driven through the organization. I'm sure a marketing department in a bankrupt company will be ineffective, also, but I wouldn't say that because of this observation, marketing departments are bad. In many cases, NOT having a marketing department may mean that the company has no overall "face" for customers and this can be very bad. Picture going into McDonalds where each restaurant would be different, serve different foods, each employee treats customers differently...the situation would neither be good for the company nor for the customers. McDonald's marketing department standardizes the "customer touch." However, consistent with the company vision, mission, and culture - worldwide.

    I hope this helps.

    Wayde
  • Posted on 2/3/2009 at 3:12 AM Accepted
    Having a marketing department can only be a facilitator of implementing a customer oriented culture. It mainly depends on the 3 - i factors (influence, impact and importance) if this will make a branding culture possible.
  • Posted on 2/3/2009 at 6:40 AM Author
    Thank you so far, however the gronroos states that " term marketing has become a burden for the marketing function. Managers as well as their subordinates in other departments and functions do not want to take part in the marketing function. But, according to the relationship marketing approach and contemporary models of industrial marketing and service marketing, they do undoubtedly belong to this function." Is relationship marketing the new way of going about it then?
  • Posted on 2/3/2009 at 6:42 AM Author
    or instead of having marketing department shouldnt marketing just an organization philosophy?
  • Posted by wnelson on 2/3/2009 at 7:05 AM Member
    Customer orientation should be an ingrained part of the company culture and an organization philosophy. Every person in a company should have a job description that clearly spells out the roles and responsibilities of that function with respect to customer orientation. Customer orientation is everybody's responsibility, not just the MARKETING DEPARTMENT. Likewise, the marketing department's sole responsibility IS NOT customer orientation! The marketing department guides the process to understand the customers' needs and influences as well as the competitive analysis, for instance. Note I said COORDINATES! Engineering has to take part in needs analysis and manufacturing takes part in competitive analysis. Marketing has the sole responsibility to set brand strategy. Who else will do this? Would you expect the finance people and the quality people to do this independently? How many brand strategies do you expect you would have if the marketing department wasn't there to manage this?

    Gronroos is apparently mixing "marketing" and "customer orientation with a concept that the sole purpose of this organization is to relate to customers. That's just plain wrong and a very bad interpretation of the function and organization called marketing. As I have on my website, the American Marketing Association adopted the following definition for marketing: “Marketing is an organizational function and a set of processes for creating, communicating, and delivering value to customers and for managing customer relationships in ways that benefit the organization and its stakeholders.” The role of marketing, the organizational function is to develop the set of marketing processes to fit the firm’s role in the business world – to create value to deliver to customers, communicate that value to the customers, and manage customer relationships. Done properly, these processes result in a tangible benefit to customers, the firm, and stakeholders of the firm. A marketing function distinct from other functions absolutely is necessary. Note that nowhere did the definition state that this function is the only group that has "customer orientation."

    Wayde

  • Posted on 2/4/2009 at 8:25 AM Author
    the AMA defines marketing : "Marketing is the activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners, and society at large." Describes it as an activity rather than a function.. therefore, should be an organizational concept rather than a department??
  • Posted by wnelson on 2/4/2009 at 1:26 PM Member
    No. Read the rest of the definition I supplied above. Marketing is BOTH a process AND a function. Your definition INCLUDES marketing is the SET OF INSTITUTIONS - AKA functions. And the function and processes have a distinct role in the organization different than any other function. Marketing should AT LEAST be a DISTINCT FUNCTION even if it isn't a distinct department. And as I said in my first post, whether it is a stand alone department or a function within an other organization - say, a product line organization - is determined by the nature of the organization and its environment. However, it is not to be eliminated by making EVERYONE responsible for marketing as Gronroos so plainly misrepresents! If this were to happen, the overall coordination of the brand and strategy would be diffused and lost.

    Wayde
  • Posted on 2/9/2009 at 2:09 PM Author
    In 2008 the AMA re-defined the definition of marketing : ‘Marketing is the activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating, communicating,delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners, and
    society at large.’ ???
  • Posted by wnelson on 2/9/2009 at 3:09 PM Member
    The definition is not appreciably different.

    ‘Marketing is the activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating..."


    A SET OF INSTITUTIONS includes functions, organizations, and departments!

    As I said, I believe the poiint that Gronroos is making is that CUSTOMER ORIENTATION is not SOLELY the job of marketing and EVERYONE in the organization should be customer oriented. However, the marketing department has many other functions. YES, everyone in the company needs to have a customer orientation! But, not everyone can define the strategies and plans for the marketing of the organization. Someone has to be responsible for this, not everyone. It WILL NOT WORK if everyone is responsible because NO ONE is in charge to make it happen! PLUS - marketing is a SKILL! You just can't wake up one day and say, "Now I'm a marketer!" So not EVERYONE in the organization has the skill to be do marketing.

    After all, EVERYONE should be manufacturing oriented, too - should be eliminate a manufacturing organization? EVERYONE should be finance oriented. Should we eliminate the finance organization? EVERYONE should be engineering oriented. Should we eliminate the engineering department? Does this make sense to you to eliminate every organization in the company? If so, how would things get done? Do we train everyone to do marketing, engineering, finance, and manufacturing? How would THAT be efficient?

    Wayde

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