Strategic marketing and the environment

Day 2 of Marketing in Rome.

We opened the day with loads of models and concepts around strategic marketing. Since the discipline of marketing apparently has no formal rules, it seems that various approaches can be taken (with sufficient justification) to address an organisational issue.

Understanding what a business does, where it is and the environment it operates in is a key requirement to performing any type of planning. A case study of an anonymous retail and fashion brand facing a clash between traditional management practices, autocracy, product focus with no market understanding, and severe lack of retail staff service or training sparked a great discussion of organisational behaviour and strategic (internal and external) marketing concepts.

Part 2 of the day covered a Xerox case study. Faced with the switch to digital document management and distribution around the turn of the millennium and the later recession, the company has had to react and change their products and services, as well as their approach to understanding how consumers want to make document management more convenient.

Understanding the customer was key, as is echoed by Sophie Vanderbroek (Xerox CTO) who argued that their goal was "involving experts who know the technology with customers who know the pain points..." The case study provided a good platform to discuss marketing environment concepts - micro environmental actors (customer, competitors, suppliers, etc) and macro environmental forces (technological-, economic- and cultural changes, etc).

Two takeaways for the day:

1. The parcel and the wall - a way to understand circumstances in which certain flex is required to get the result you desire.
2. Understand the actors and forces in the environment, in an attempt to foresee how the environment could change in future.

: 10 Feb 2013 15:51 |  Tags: Case Studies Face-To-Face Marketing |  Comments (0) |  Report a problem