209 Reading: Overview of the Marketing Plan
The Role of Marketing in the Organization
We previously discussed marketing as a set of activities that anyone can do. Marketing is also a functional area in companies, just like operations and accounting are. Within a company, marketing might be the title of a department, but some marketing functions, such as sales, might be handled by another department. Marketing activities do not occur separately from the rest of the company, however.
As we have explained, pricing an offering, for example, will involve a company’s finance and accounting departments in addition to the marketing department. Similarly, a marketing strategy is not created solely by a firm’s marketing personnel. Instead, it flows from the company’s overall strategy.
Everything Starts with Customers
Most organizations start with an idea of how to serve customers better. Apple’s engineers began working on the iPod by looking at the available technology and thinking about how customers would like to have their music more available, as well as more affordable, through downloading.
Many companies think about potential markets and customers when they start. John Deere, for example, founded his company on the principle of serving customers. When admonished for making constant improvements to his products even though farmers would take whatever they could get, Deere reportedly replied, “They haven’t got to take what we make and somebody else will beat us, and we will lose our trade.” He recognized that if his company failed to meet customers’ needs, someone else would. As a result, their company mission statement changed to the following:
We aspire to distinctively serve customers—those linked to the land—through a great business, a business as great as our products. To achieve this aspiration, our strategy is:
- Exceptional operating performance
- Disciplined SVA growth
- Aligned high-performance teamwork.
IBM
IBM will be driven by these values:
- Dedication to every client’s success.
- Innovation that matters, for our company and for the world.
- Trust and personal responsibility in all relationships.
Coca-Cola
Everything we do is inspired by our enduring mission:
- To refresh the world…in body, mind, and spirit.
- To inspire moments of optimism…through our brands and our actions.
- To create value and make a difference…everywhere we engage.
McDonald’s
- To be our customers’ favorite place and way to eat.
Merck
- To provide innovative and distinctive products and services that save and improve lives and satisfy customer needs, to be recognized as a great place to work, and to provide investors with a superior rate of return.
Not all companies create mission statements that reflect a marketing orientation. Note Apple’s mission statement: “Apple ignited the personal computer revolution in the 1970s with the Apple II and reinvented the personal computer in the 1980s with the Macintosh. Today, Apple continues to lead the industry in innovation wit