The New Marketing: Transforming the Corporate Future

Citation

Daniel, E. (2003), "The New Marketing: Transforming the Corporate Future", Journal of Small Business and Enterprise Development, Vol. 10 No. 3, pp. 356-357. https://doi.org/10.1108/14626000310489835

Marketing in crisis! SO starts The New Marketing by the eminent marketing professor and prolific author, Malcolm McDonald and his colleague from Cranfield School of Management, Dr Hugh Wilson. The authors continue that, despite the best part of a century of marketing, there is still much confusion about the meaning of the term marketing and quite what this discipline involves. The authors speculate that perhaps this is why their colleagues sometimes hold marketers in low regard. The book cites a survey of non‐marketing senior managers that describe their marketing colleagues as “expensive, unaccountable and slippery!”

The book addresses the key activities involved in marketing in the light of the changes brought about by technological developments such as the Internet, and the associated information revolution. The authors stress that new consumers, as they term consumers that happily switch between on‐line and off‐line channels, are marketing literate and are rejecting the traditional manufacturer push model of make/promote/sell. Instead they suggest firms must find a more proactive style of marketing. The speeds at which the commercial world now moves, they say, means firms cannot necessarily undertake the leisurely process of going out and asking customers what they want, and then manufacture, promote and sell such products. Indeed, customers may not be able to specify what they want, or know what is possible. Instead, they want manufacturers and firms that provide services to develop quality and innovative offerings, and often at ever decreasing prices. The authors stress that, rather than settling for being market‐driven, companies that succeed in the future will be those that can develop a proactive, marketing‐driving approach.

So how can this be achieved? The book presents a map of the entire set of activities that constitute the discipline of marketing from: understanding the market that you operate in and the value that customers are looking for; through creating the value proposition and delivering this, to finally measuring what value has been delivered to customers and what value has been realised by the firm. This latter stage in particular, the authors stress, is often overlooked, but provides vital feedback to the first stage of the process, that is understanding what customers want and how you can or might provide this. A set of inter‐related tools or frameworks that incorporate the opportunities offered by latest developments in information systems, such as CRM, e‐commerce and the Internet, are provided as a means for exploring each of the marketing activities discuss. Use of these tools is describe and worked examples are presented.

The authors stress that the early, stand‐alone experimentation that many organisations have undertaken with new technologies, such as e‐commerce, is not enough. The new technologies must be fully integrated with the marketing activities of the organisation, both at the initial planning stage and in operationalising those plans.

So, the book is obviously of real of interest to the many large companies that are spending significant sums on CRM systems and data warehouses – but is it relevant to smaller businesses? Undoubtedly the book will also be of value to these organisations. New technologies, such as the Internet, have been forecast to offer smaller businesses particular advantages. For example, a Web site may allow such companies to promote their products to new customers, which is often particularly important to smaller specialised producers. The Internet can also allow companies to search for lower cost suppliers, or even to aggregate their purchasing with other companies, and hence obtain terms that are equivalent to those offered to large organisations with greater purchasing power. However, despite the advantages promised by these new technologies there are also pitfalls. With limited financial resources, and often more importantly, limited management resources, it is important that smaller businesses avoid such pitfalls. This book offers such organisations a step‐wise guide to identifying the options that new technologies can offer them, what value they may offer their customers and how they can at least begin to develop such systems or services. Following the process suggested in the book should aid in the identification of new opportunities, and just as importantly, help to avoid costly mistakes.