Words: 543
Article Reaction: Worried about strategy implementation? Don’t overlook marketing’s role Strategy implementation is at least as important as strategy development; indeed, most times strategies fail because they are not well-executed. According to Porter, all the elements of an organization’s architecture need to fit together in order to obtain a sustainable competitive advantage. In fact, competitors face stronger difficulties in imitating an array of interconnected activities rather than a single one.
Marketing has a strong contribution to the implementation of alternative business strategies. This article deals with a study that analyses the link between business strategies and a marketing organizational architecture. A business strategy is the sum of decisions made to achieve competitive advantage; according to the authors, there are four types of strategies: 1. Prospectors: they usually try to enter emerging market or market segments with innovative new products. 2.
Analyzers: they tend to quickly follow the prospectors and to compete with them by improving their products/services or with lower prices. 3. Low-Cost Defenders: they usually enter mature markets offering the lowest prices. 4. Differentiated Defenders: they compete in mature markets offering differentiated products or services at a premium price. A marketing organizational structure’s elements are: * Organization culture: it represents the set of values and beliefs that lead an organization’s behaviors and decisions.
There are four dominant types of culture: * Adhocracy: characterized by flexibility, external orientation and creative behaviors * Market: characterized by control, external orientation and competitive behaviors * Clan: characterized by flexibility, internal orientation and relationship-building behaviors * Hierarchy: characterized by control, internal orientation and behaviors based on predictability and smooth operations * Marketing Strategy: set of decisions made to achieve marketing’s objectives.
Four types: * Aggressive marketers: provide high quality and innovative products; they have close relationships with customers and engage extensive marketing research using a selective distribution strategy. * Mass Marketers: provide products of good quality and are innovative followers. They compete with prices and use broad distribution channels. * Marketing Minimizers: provide products with adequate quality and low prices.
The distribution strategy is usually intensive. * Value Marketers: provide high quality, innovative products for higher prices. Their distribution channel is less selective. * Strategy formation: the process of developing effective strategies within a business; it is usually related to: mission/goal statement, situation analysis, comprehensiveness of alternative evaluation and strategy formation process. * Organizational behavior: behaviors required to implement the strategies.
The organizational behaviors can be oriented to: customers, competitors, innovation or cost-reducing. * Organizational structure: it describes how the decisions are made; it may be formalized, centralized or specialized. * Control systems: mechanisms through which managers determine if their strategies’ objectives have been achieved according to four different perspectives: financial, customer, internal and innovation/learning. Results: Organization culture| Marketing Strategy| Strategy formation| Organizational behavior| Organizational structure| Control systems| Prospectors| Adhocracy Culture| Aggressive Marketing Strategy| Active search of new opportunities and flexibility| Focused of customers and innovation| Informal and Decentralized| Innovation Perspective| Analyzers| Market and Hierarchy Culture| Mass Marketing Strategy| Opportunism| Customers and competitors oriented| Moderately informal but decentralized| Innovation Perspective| Low-Cost Defenders| Hierarchy Culture| Marketing Minimizer| Emphasis on cost control| Competitors oriented| Formal Approach| Financial and Internal Business Perspectives| Differentiated Defenders| Clan Culture| Value Marketers| Deliver superior service and product quality| Customers oriented| Moderately informal| Customer and Innovation/Growth Perspective|