Chapter

8
Marketing Strategy

Chapter 8

Marketing
Implementation

Organizations do not implement strategies,

PEOPLE DO!
Chapter

Marketing Implementation
8

• Marketing implementation is the process of executing the

marketing strategy by creating specific actions that will ensure
that the marketing objectives are achieved.
• Marketing strategies almost always turn out differently than
anticipated because of the difference between intended
marketing strategy and realized marketing strategy.
– Intended marketing strategy is what the organization wants to
happen; it is the organization's planned strategic choice.
– Realized marketing strategy is the strategy that actually takes
place.
– The difference between the intended and realized strategy is more
often than not the result of the way the intended marketing
strategy is implemented.
Chapter
8
Issues in Marketing Implementation

• Planning and Implementation Are Interdependent

Processes

• Planning and Implementation Are Constantly

Evolving

• Planning and Implementation Are Separated

Chapter
8 Planning and Implementation Are
Interdependent Processes

• While it is true that the content of the marketing

plan determines how it will be implemented, it is
also true that how a marketing strategy is to be
implemented determines the content of the
marketing plan.

• Certain marketing strategies will dictate some parts

of their implementation.
Chapter
8 Planning and Implementation Are
Constantly Evolving
• The reality of marketing is that critically important environmental
factors are constantly shifting.
– As customers change their wants and needs, as competitors devise new marketing
strategies, and as the organization's own internal environment changes, the firm
must constantly adapt.
– Because of the interrelationship between marketing strategy and marketing
implementation, both must constantly change.

• Managers often assume that there is one correct way to implement a

given strategy.
– Just as strategy often results from trial and error, so does marketing
implementation.
– The fact that marketing is customer-driven (marketing concept) requires that the
organization be flexible enough to alter its implementation to counter changes in
its customers' preferences or the competitive environment.
Chapter
8 Planning and Implementation Are
Separated
• The ineffective implementation of marketing strategy is often a
self-generated problem stemming from the planning process itself.
– While strategic planning is carried out by top managers, the responsibility
for implementing marketing plans falls on lower-level managers and
frontline employees.
– Because top managers are separated from the "front line" of the
organization, they often do not understand the unique problems associated
with implementing marketing strategies.
– Conversely, those employees who do understand the problems of
marketing implementation usually have no voice in developing the
marketing plan.
• Another trap that top managers often fall into is believing that
lower-level managers and frontline employees will be excited
about the marketing strategy and motivated to implement it.
Chapter
8 The Components of Successful Marketing
Implementation
• Shared goals and values among all employees within the organization are
the "glue" that binds the entire organization together as a single,
functioning unit.
• Marketing structure refers to how an organization's marketing activities
are organized.
• Organizational systems and processes are collections of work activities
that take in a variety of inputs to create information and communication
outputs that ensure the consistent day-to-day operation of the organization.
• An organization's resources can include a wide variety of assets that can
be brought together during marketing implementation.
• People refers to the human side of marketing implementation, the "5th P"
of marketing.
• Leadership, the art of managing people, includes how managers
communicate with employees, as well as how they motivate their people to
implement a marketing strategy.
Chapter
8
Organization’s Shared Goals and Values

• Without a common direction to hold the organization together,

different areas of the company may work toward different
outcomes, thus limiting the success of the entire organization.
• Institutionalizing shared goals and values within a firm's
culture is a long-term process.
– The primary means of creating shared goals and values is
through employee training and socialization programs.
– Creating shared goals and values is the most important part of
marketing implementation because it stimulates organizational
commitment where employees become more motivated to
implement the marketing strategy and meet customer needs.
Chapter
8

Organization’s Marketing Structure

• The organization's marketing structure establishes formal lines
of authority, as well as the division of labor within the
marketing function.
• Managers must decide how to divide and integrate marketing
responsibilities and how much to centralize decision making.
– In a centralized marketing structure, all marketing activities and
decisions are coordinated and managed from the top of the marketing
hierarchy. Centralized structures are very cost-efficient and effective in
ensuring standardization within the marketing program.
– In a decentralized marketing structure, marketing activities and
decisions are coordinated and managed from the front line of the
organization. Decentralized marketing structures have the advantage of
placing marketing decisions close to the front line where customer
needs are the priority.
Chapter

Organizational Systems and Processes

8

• By providing a continuous flow of information, the

marketing information system (MIS) can assist in the
analysis of the internal and external environments before
marketing strategies are developed.

• The MIS is also used during implementation to assist in

the evaluation and control of all marketing activities.
Chapter
8
Organization’s Resources

• Organization assets may be tangible or intangible

– Tangible resources include financial resources, manufacturing
capacity, facilities, and equipment.
– Intangible resources include marketing expertise, customer
loyalty, and external relationships/strategic alliances.
• A critical and honest evaluation of available resources
during the environmental and SWOT analyses can help
ensure that the marketing strategy and marketing
implementation are within the realm of possibility.
• Once the marketing plan is completed, the manager must
seek the approval of needed resources from top
management.
Chapter
8
Organization’s People

• The implementation of any marketing strategy

depends on the quality, diversity, and skills of the
firm's work force.

• People are considered by many as the “5th P” of

marketing.

• The people component also includes employee

selection and training, reward policies, employee
motivation, commitment, and morale.
Chapter

Organization’s Leadership
8

• Leaders are responsible for establishing the corporate

culture necessary for implementation success.
• Marketing implementation is more successful when
leaders create an organizational culture characterized
by open communication between employees and
managers.
• One of the most important tasks leaders perform is to
motivate their employees to give their best effort.
• A final trait that all leaders possess is a leadership
style, or way of approaching a given task.
Chapter
8
Approaches to Marketing Implementation

• With the command approach, marketing strategies are

evaluated and selected at the top of the organization and
forced downward to lower levels where frontline managers
and employees are expected to implement them.

• The change approach is similar to the command approach

except that it focuses explicitly on implementation.

• In the consensus approach, top managers and lower-level

managers work together to evaluate and develop marketing
strategies.

• The cultural approach carries the participative style of the

consensus approach to the lower levels of the organization.
Chapter
8
The Command Approach

• The command approach has two advantages:

– It makes decision making easier.
– It reduces uncertainty as to what is to be done.

• The command approach has several disadvantages:

– It does not consider the feasibility of implementing the
marketing strategy.
– It divides the organization into strategists and
implementers, with no consideration for how strategy and
implementation affect each other.
– The command approach often creates employee motivation
problems.
Chapter
8

The Change Approach

• The basic premise here is to modify the organization in
ways that will ensure the successful implementation of the
chosen marketing strategy.
• A manager taking this approach is more of an architect and
politician, skillfully crafting the organization to fit the
requirements of the chosen marketing strategy.
• The change approach still suffers from the issue of
separation of planning and implementation.
• This approach often take a great deal of time to design and
implement.
Chapter
8
The Consensus Approach
• The underlying premise is that managers from different areas and levels of the
organization come together as a team to "brainstorm" and develop the marketing
strategy.
• Through this collective decision-making process, a marketing strategy is agreed
upon and a consensus reached as to the overall direction of the organization.
• This approach moves some of the decision-making authority closer to the front
lines.
• The consensus approach often retains the barrier between strategists and
implementers.
• Managers at all levels within the organization must communicate openly about
strategy on a daily basis, not just during formal strategy development sessions.
• This works best in complex, uncertain, and highly unstable environments.
Chapter
8
The Cultural Approach

• The basic premise is that marketing strategy is a part of the overall

organizational vision.
• The goal of top managers using this approach is to shape the
organization's culture in such a way that all employees—top managers
to janitors participate in making decisions that help the organization
reach its objectives.
• As a result, the cultural approach breaks down the barrier between
strategists and implementers so that all employees work toward a
single purpose.
• Employees are allowed to design their own work procedures, as long
as they are consistent with the organizational mission, goals, and
objectives. This extreme form of decentralization is often called
empowerment (i.e.,allowing them to make decisions on how to
perform their jobs).
Chapter
8 People: the Human Side of Marketing
Implementation

• Employee Selection and Training

• Employee Evaluation and Compensation Policies

• Employee Motivation, Satisfaction, and

Commitment
Chapter
8
Employee Selection and Training

• One of the most critical aspects of marketing

implementation is matching employees' skills and
abilities to the marketing tasks to be performed
through employee recruitment, selection, and training.
– One of the best ways to ensure a match of skills to
activities is to select individuals with raw abilities and
train them to perform certain tasks.
– Through training and socialization programs, employees
learn to understand what is expected of them in
implementing a marketing strategy.
– An increasingly important aspect of selection and training
practices is the management of employee diversity,
whether it be ethnic or generational.
Chapter
8 Employee Evaluation and Compensation
Policies
• Develop an evaluation and compensation program that ties
employee rewards to performance levels on required
marketing activities.
• Employee evaluation and compensation should be based on
either outcome-based or behavior-based control systems.
– Outcome-based control evaluates and compensates employees
based on measurable, quantitative standards, such as sales volume
or gross margin levels.
– Behavior-based control evaluates and compensates employees
based on subjective, qualitative standards such as effort,
motivation, teamwork, and friendliness toward/problem solving
with customers.
Chapter
8 Employee Motivation, Satisfaction, and
Commitment
• This is the extent to which employees are motivated to
implement a strategy, their overall feelings of job
satisfaction, and the commitment they feel toward the
organization and its goals.
– While factors such as employee motivation, satisfaction, and
commitment are critical to successful implementation, they
are highly dependent on other components, especially
training, the evaluation/compensation system, and leadership,
as well as marketing structure and processes.
– The key is to recognize the importance of these factors to
successful marketing implementation, and to manage them
accordingly.
Chapter
8

The Expanding Role of Internal Marketing

• Internal marketing refers to the managerial actions
necessary to make all members of the organization
understand and accept their respective roles in
implementing marketing strategy.
– Under the internal marketing approach, every employee has two
sets of customers: external and internal.
– Unlike traditional approaches where the responsibility for
implementation rests with lower levels of the organization, the
internal marketing approach places this responsibility on all
employees, regardless of organizational level.
– Successful marketing implementation comes from an
accumulation of individual actions where all employees are
responsible for implementing the marketing strategy.
Chapter
8
The Four Ps of Internal Marketing

Internal Products
The marketing strategy
Employee tasks, behaviors, values, & attitudes

Internal Prices
Employees’ job-related changes
Working harder; expanding abilities

Internal Distribution
How the marketing strategy is communicated (e.g., planning
sessions, workshops, formal reports, employee training)

Internal Promotion
Informing and persuading employees about the merits of the
marketing strategy (e.g., speeches, newsletters, etc.)
Chapter
8 Successful Implementing an Internal
Marketing Approach Requires
• The recruitment, selection, and training of employees must be
considered an important component of marketing implementation.
• Top managers must be completely committed to the marketing
strategy and overall marketing plan.
• Employee compensation programs must be linked to the
implementation of the marketing strategy.
• The organization should be characterized by open communication
among all employees, regardless of organizational level.
• Organizational structures, policies, and processes should match the
marketing strategy to ensure that the strategy is capable of being
implemented.
Chapter
8
Hypothetical Implementation Timeline

Weeks 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

Conduct customer surveys

Analyze data, present findings

Develop point-of-purchase materials

Conduct sales force training

Roll out program in selected regions

with personal and mass promotion