Marketing Strategies for Competitive Advantage

Citation

Jocumsen, G. (2002), "Marketing Strategies for Competitive Advantage", European Journal of Marketing, Vol. 36 No. 1/2, pp. 273-275. https://doi.org/10.1108/ejm.2002.36.1_2.273.2

Summary of key material/aspects

This book sets out to present marketing strategy in a “different” way from earlier texts in the area. The author seeks to focus on “the elements that are vital to compete effectively in today’s marketplaces” (p. vi), embracing non‐confrontational relationship‐based approaches and stressing the integral role of effective implementation for marketing strategy success. Achievement of this goal is sought through five parts; The Process and Players Involved, Where to Compete, How to Compete, Evaluation and Selection of Strategy, and Implementation and Control of Strategy. These parts comprise 21 individual chapters. The full structure of the text is modelled in Figure 0.1 (p. vii) and this is repeated at the beginning of each part to assist the reader to maintain an awareness of the interrelationships among the different parts and sections throughout. Unfortunately the individual text chapters are not integrated into the text model and this increases the effort of the reader in making sense of the model as each chapter is addressed.

Each chapter opens with a rather extensive content‐laden introduction, which attempts to succinctly cover the entire content of the chapter. The introductions lack clear structures in themselves and do not outline a “map” of the underpinning logic, chapter objectives or pedagogy of how the material will be structured and covered. The content itself of each chapter is periodically split into unnumbered headings which generally are not effectively “linked” with one another. This content is liberally interspersed with input from a wide range of traditional sources in the strategy, marketing and strategic management discipline fields, together with examples drawn largely from the author’s extensive work and academic experiences. Each chapter has a “conclusions”, “key points” and “questions” section, which once again lacks direction, structure and clear linkages back to the content in the chapter. The presence of these sections is a positive attribute of the chapter structure but their potential benefits to the reader have not been maximized in this instance.

Strengths and weaknesses

The first key strength of this book lies in the author himself. As an experienced manager, consultant and academic he has perceived a need to impart his personal views, distilled from extensive reading and interaction with the “real world” environment, in a readable form to meet needs of both academics and practitioners. This distillation has led him to the view that the key to effective marketing strategy lies in building customer partnerships and relationships rather than in relying upon the traditional marketing mix route. A second strength lies in the attempts of the author to structure the whole text around a unifying “model”, and potentially helpful “conclusions”, “key points” and “questions” at the end of each chapter. Third, the author has utilized a wide range of references and examples to contribute to the content of each chapter.

Virtually all the weaknesses in this book can be attributed to shortcomings in purpose and planning, reflected in the author’s preface and text “model” (pp. v‐vii). First, the targeted markets have been defined as students in the third year of undergraduate courses (most having very limited exposure to marketing practice), students on MBA courses (usually with extensive work experience but not necessarily in marketing), and marketing practitioners (experienced but often with little formal academically structured training). To present a single book to meet the needs of these diverse groups is a virtually insurmountable challenge. Second, after reading the preface a reader would be entitled to believe that the central “theme” or “thrust” of the book is that the key to marketing success lies in effective establishment, development and maintenance of customer relationships and partnerships. However, this theme is at best only loosely followed, surfacing most strongly in Part V, Implementation and Control of Strategy. Third, the author’s attempts to meet the needs of a diverse readership have resulted in a rather fragmented interspersion of theory and practice, with neither developed fully enough to satisfy either the academic or the practitioner markets. This latter problem is further reflected in the frequent use of rather elaborate, often hybridized, inadequately explained and difficult to follow flow diagrams of key concepts and relationships (for example, Figures 1.2, 2.7, 8.4 and 11.2). Fourth, the planning shortcomings have resulted in a confusing and “cluttered” text “model” whose content is not sufficiently and unambiguously linked to the actual content of the text. Furthermore, the lack of clear objectives for each chapter has limited the usefulness and relevance of the conclusions, key points and questions. The lack of objectives and clear structure has caused some repetition throughout and necessitated the author to refer to other chapters and sections frequently in discussion.

Value of the book

To marketing and academics. This book does make a contribution to marketing in that it has raised many issues which have received little attention in past texts on marketing strategy. It presents the “thoughts”, “distillations” and perspectives (albeit in a rather fragmented and unstructured way) of a long‐time respected academic and practitioner in marketing, who has felt the need to present an alternative to the traditional texts in the field. There is much material in the book which will no doubt be researched and developed further by academics. Furthermore it incorporates a rather extensive bibliography of the more frequently cited writings.

To students. Both undergraduate and postgraduate MBA students will have some difficulties with this text, due primarily to its overall structure and presentation. Students at all levels do seek structure and a clear statement of objectives in their courses and, likewise, lecturing staff seek texts which need a minimum of interpretation and support from them. However, it would serve as a useful source of reference material to complement courses in marketing strategy.

To practitioners. Practitioners seeking specific “marketing strategies for competitive advantage” to implement in their organizations will, in my opinion, be somewhat disappointed with this text. Indeed, if they complete a full reading, they may well be more confused about marketing strategy than they were before. It would be a very special practising marketer indeed who could digest the content of this book and synthesize practical actions to develop and effectively implement specific “marketing strategies for competitive advantage”.

In conclusion, suitable teaching texts today must be based upon sound pedagogy supported by appropriate input from expert instructional designers. This text would be significantly improved with further attention to these two issues.