B207A

Big ideas in organizations

Shaping Business Opportunities I
 Block 1
Big ideas in organizations
Session 4: Marketing- setting the scene
 Learning Outcomes
At the end of this session you should be able to:
Understand the marketing concept
Recognize that ‘big ideas’ can take many forms and marketing can encourage
and support innovation in a range of ways
Appreciate the importance of having a clearly articulated purpose expressed
in a mission statement; of taking account of the external environment and
competitors; and of conducting marketing research to shape big ideas.
Innovation and marketing
In marketing, innovation could be a completely new product or service, or an innovation in an existing
product or service.
Innovation can also be applied to the delivery (supply) or promotion of products and services, or even to
their exchange concept (relating to the value exchanged between sellers and buyers).
An example of an innovation in promotion was Coca-Cola replacing its logo on its labelling on bottles
with printed personalized names, which proved one of its most successful marketing campaigns (Coca-
Cola, 2016).
As an example of innovation in the exchange concept, TOMS Shoes set up its business founded on the
big idea of donating a pair of shoes to a child in need for every pair bought by customers (TOMS, 2017).
Even if a product remains seemingly the same over time (such as the original Coca-Cola, Kellogg’s
breakfast cereal Corn Flakes), an organization will need to adapt other elements of its marketing (such as
advertising, social media presence or labeling) to accommodate the changing environment in which it
operates.
The marketing process
To be successful, organisations need to be proactive in not only responding to
but anticipating change.
The marketing process involves pursuing the organisation’s mission, vision
and values by analysing the market, choosing a marketing strategy, formulating
the offering and implementing, monitoring and evaluating the marketing
programme.
Go to reading 1
Block 1- Reading 1
The marketing concept
 Reading 1 - Marketing Definition

There are various definitions of Marketing that have evolved over time, through
experience and varied with perspective.
One professional definition of marketing states:
Marketing is the activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating,
communicating, delivering ,and exchanging offerings that have value for
customers, clients, partners, and society at large.
(American Marketing Association,2013)

From an academic perspective, marketing is defined as:

Marketing consists of individual and organizational activities that facilitate and
expedite satisfying exchange relationships in a dynamic environment through
the creation, distribution, promotion and pricing of goods ,services and ideas.
(Dibbeta l.,2016, p. 8)

Reading 1: Marketing definition

Marketing Definition
The key points to note from these definitions are that marketing
involves:
 A process of activities that make possible an exchange .
 Something that is offered for exchange – an ‘offering’ (which could be a
good, a service or idea) .
 The provision of value for the parties involved in the exchange(for
example, profit for organisations and the satisfaction of requirements for
customers).

Reading 1: Marketing definition

Market Orientation and Concept
The focus of organizations has shifted from sales
orientation to marketing orientation.
Accordingly, the role of the marketer would be;
To act at the interface between the company and its
customers. They need to coordinate the company’s activities
with the needs of customers, and to communicate the
company’s offerings to its target groups.
Blythe (2006, p. 3)

Reading 1: Marketing definition

The Marketing Function
Responsibilities of the marketing function:
Monitoring and analyzing the market and developing trends, opportunities, threats
and competition
Determining objectives and strategies in alignment with the organization’s
mission, vision and values
Identifying the most appropriate consumers to target and ensuring that products
and services meet their needs and are suitably positioned in the relevant market
Managing the brand(s) to project a coherent and compelling brand identity that
attracts and builds relationships with consumers to secure a strong reputation and
consumers’ goodwill and to guarantee future income and ward off competition
Ensuring that products and services are communicated, delivered an offered at a
price to consumers that constitutes an attractive proposition and ensuring that all
points of contact in the exchange process enhance the purchase experience.

Reading 1: Marketing definition

The Marketing Process

Reading 1: Marketing definition

The Marketing Process
The organization's mission and vision guide the organization during the
marketing process, helping to maintain a steady (but not necessarily fixed)
course against a dynamic and sometimes turbulent environment.
So, in order to insure that customers want or need what you propose to
offer, you will need to do the following;
Step 1: analysis of the market: understand the marketplace and your
potential customers’ needs and wants.
Step 2: strategy selection: to which customers to direct your offering and
how to offer them value.
Step 3: formulation of the offering: how you would deliver that value to
customers.
Step 4: implementation, monitoring and evaluation: If you are able to
nurture loyal customers, then you can capture value from them.
Reading 1: Marketing definition
Mission, Vision and Values
An organisation’s purpose is its reason for being and is typically
setout in a formal mission statement.
A Vision is always future-oriented or focused.
 Examples;
Lego:
 Mission: ‘Inspire and develop the builders of tomorrow’
Vision: Inventing the future of play’ 
Facebook
 Mission: “to give people the power to share and make the world more open
and connected.”
 Vision: “People use Facebook to stay connected with friends and family, to

discover what’s going on in the world, and to share and express what
matters to them.”

Reading 1: Marketing definition

Mission, Vision and Values
A successful mission statement will pass the following six tests:
Be specific enough to guide staff’s behavior.
Be based on fulfilling customers’ needs and satisfaction rather than
on the products’ characteristics.
Encapsulate the organization's key skills.
Signal opportunities and threats
Be achievable
Be adaptable

Reading 1: Marketing definition

Mission, Vision and Values
A mission statement needs to take into account:
The organization's heritage: its performance record and
ownership history
 Its leaders’ values, preferences and expectations
 Environmental factors, particularly opportunities and
threats
 Available resources
Distinctive competencies.

Reading 1: Marketing definition

Mission, Vision and Values
Values are important because they guide behavior, especially in
novel situations.
A value has been defined as
‘an enduring belief that a specific mode of conduct or end-state of
existence is personally or socially preferable to an opposite or converse
mode of conduct or end-state of existence’

Reading 1: Marketing definition

Corporate strategy
At the corporate (or organizational) level, the mission, vision and
values help to determine supporting objectives that direct the whole
organization and the allocation of support, resources and functional
coordination for its areas of business.
The marketing process features within this to support the overall
organization-wide objectives at the level of the business unit, brand
or market, as appropriate, to pursue identified marketing
opportunities.

Reading 1: Marketing definition

Organizational opportunities and resources
Assessing organizational opportunities and resources involves
three Considerations:
Evaluating marketing opportunities
Environmental scanning
Understanding the organization's capabilities and assets.
 Marketing opportunity is the;
‘circumstances and timing that allow an organization to take
action towards reaching a target market’. This relates to the
concept of ‘strategic windows’

Reading 1: Marketing definition

Organizational opportunities and resources
Four main types of changes in a market:
Change resulting from new needs in a marketplace (for example, the
need to be able to digitally scan documents rather than just
photocopy them)
Change prompted from the development of new technology (for
example the advent of mobile phones)
Change that redefines a market owing to changes in a product or in
competitors’ product market strategies (for example, music-sharing
websites)
 Change in a channel (for example, online retailing).

Reading 1: Marketing definition

Organizational opportunities and resources
Four strategic options that existing organizations might adopt to respond
to marketplace changes were also identified by in descending order of
resource commitment:
try to gather the necessary resources to address the gap between market
requirements and the organization's capability to meet them.
transfer focus to market segments with a better fit between
requirements and the organization's capabilities
scale back future investment in the affected marketplace and extract
whatever short-term profit is available
 exit the affected marketplace.

Reading 1: Marketing definition

Organizational opportunities and resources
Taking advantage of strategic windows involves matching
an organization's strengths to available opportunities.
 To do this requires an internal analysis of an
organization's strengths and weaknesses and
 An external search for opportunities and threats. A
commonly used tool to analyze strengths, weaknesses,
opportunities and threats is the SWOT analysis

Reading 1: Marketing definition

Block 1- Reading 2
The marketing environment
Reading 2 - The external environment
External environment presents both opportunities and
challenges.
Competition can come from organizations offering
different solutions to the same customer needs, not just
organizations offering similar products or services.
Differential advantage: a factor or trait that sets your offer
aside from those of competitors.

Reading 2: The marketing environment

The Marketing Environment

Reading 2: The marketing environment

The Marketing Environment
Analyzing the marketing environment:
• Marketing research; (data the organization collects about a particular
market)
• Marketing intelligence; (publicly available information about the
marketing environment).

Reading 2: The marketing environment

The micro environment
The micro environment focuses on the groups of
stakeholders and audiences in an organization's immediate
environment that affect its activities and success.
These include:
Customers
Intermediaries
Suppliers
Competitors
Publics

Reading 2: The marketing environment

The micro environment
1- Customers:
Five types of customer markets:
 Consumer markets – goods and services purchased by individuals and
householders for personal consumption
 Business markets – goods and services purchased by businesses for use in
their operations or manufacturing
 Reseller markets – goods and services purchased for reselling at a profit
 Government markets – goods and services purchased by governments for
the delivery of public services
 International markets – goods and services purchased by buyers in other
countries who may be any of the preceding four types of buyers –
consumers, businesses, resellers or governments.

Reading 2: The marketing environment

The micro environment
2- Marketing intermediaries
They may include physical distributors, for example haulers, resellers, such
as wholesalers, retailers, agents, dealers and brokers, or marketing
consultants, including advertising, media or marketing research agencies.
3- Suppliers
Suppliers supply organizations with resources such as raw materials,
components or finished goods that serve as inputs into organizations'
offerings to their customers.

Reading 2: The marketing environment

The micro environment
4- Competitors
Competitors include:
 Direct competitors: (who offer similar goods or services),
 Substitutes: (who satisfy customers’ needs through some alternative means)
 New entrants: (new competitors who may offer some enhanced goods or
services).
5- Publics
Any group that has an actual or potential interest in or impact on an
organization's ability to achieve its objectives“ such as financial organizations
or persons; media reporting on business activities, such as television, radio,
newspapers, etc.;

Reading 2: The marketing environment

The macro environment
Social factors
Societal changes present opportunities for innovation.
 Technological factors
Technological innovations offer the potential for organizations to
take advantage of strategic windows. Examples include 3D
printing which has myriad uses and potential uses.
Economic factors
Changes in economic conditions can also stimulate innovation.
For example Xercise4Less budget fitness clubs ‘offer members of
all ages the opportunity to exercise and live a healthy lifestyle in a
non-intimidating and judgement-free environment, at an
affordable cost’
Reading 2: The marketing environment
The macro environment
 Environmental factors
Environmental factors can present challenges, for example, in
complying with increasing expectations that products be recyclable,
but they can also encourage innovation.
 Political factors
Political factors such as changes in political parties, governing
political figures or membership of key trading groups can also
change the macro environment and present opportunities as well as
threats for organizations.

Reading 2: The marketing environment

The macro environment
 Legal factors
Changes in legislation and regulation can create strategic windows for
organizations with the resources to take advantage of them. For example, the
Data Protection Act 1998 provided opportunities for companies offering data
protection services to help organizations meet their data protection
obligations.
 Ethical factors
Consumers’ heightened awareness of the social and environmental impact of
some business activities and offerings creates opportunities for organizations
to meet demand for ethical offerings. Examples include a range of products
that carry various types of ethical certification, for example by the Soil
Association, the Fairtrade Labelling Organization (FLO) and the Forest
Stewardship Council (FSC).

Reading 2: The marketing environment

Competitive Advantage and Strategies
Competitive advantage : some form of distinct superior value to offer
over competitors that matters to customers.
Strategies include;
Cost leadership – being the lowest-cost provider through economies of
scale and sizeable market share (for example, the low-cost airline Ryanair)
 Differentiation – distinguishing an offering from competitors in some way
that is important to customers, examples include Mercedes,
 Focus – specializing to serve a niche market segment (for example,
developing expertise in a particular area to meet the particular needs of a
target group most closely).
Porter proposed two forms of focus strategy: a niche focus on cost and a
niche focus on differentiation. An example of the latter is Aston Martin
serving the super car niche market

Reading 2: The marketing environment

Competitive positions and differential advantage
Differential advantage has been defined as;
‘an attribute of a brand, product, service or marketing mix that is
desired by the targeted customer and provided by only one supplier: it
is a unique edge over rivals in satisfying this customer’
In offering a differential advantage, an organization needs to take
into account;
Capabilities and resources
Its competitors and the environment
Its customer perspective on the advantage offered.

Reading 2: The marketing environment

Block 1- Reading 3
Marketing research
Marketing Research
Marketing research is important at all stages of the marketing process.
For example, it can be used:
To choose a brand name that will be effective and appropriate in
different countries
To explore customers’ changing needs to develop a new product or
service or improve an existing one
To evaluate the competition
To inform the design of a marketing campaign.

Reading 3: Marketing research

Marketing research
Types of information research can provide:
• Behavioral: how do consumers behave; what do they do and why?
• Attitudinal – research can enable organizations to assess range of
perceptions and opinions relating to customer satisfaction and
preference in the provision of services and products.
• Product development – research can identify new trends and
changing habits, and help a business stay ahead of its target market,
as well as testing new products and strategies before they are
launched.
(for More kinds see box 1 reading 1 page 31)

Reading 3: Marketing research

Types of data collection
The three principal types of marketing information are (see table 1
page 33) :
- Organizational records: which are collected as part of an
organization's activities.
 Marketing research, which can either be collected directly for the
purpose in hand – primary research – or have been conducted for
other purposes but be relevant for the purpose in hand – secondary
research (i.e. second hand).
 Marketing intelligence, which is external, and includes publicly
available information and purchased reports about the micro or
macro environment.

Reading 3: Marketing research

Types of data collection
Quantitative data: are typically numerical data or data that lend
themselves to being converted into numerical form (or a quantity).
Ideally, quantitative data are collected from large samples of
respondents that are representative of a market segment and the
data can be analyzed statistically.
Qualitative data: are textual or verbal data that are typically
explanatory rather than numerical and describe the qualities of
something. The data obtained using qualitative methods require
interpretation.