The marketing concept
The concept of marketing has changed and evolved over time. Whilst
in today’s business world, the customer is at the forefront, not
all businesses in the past followed this concept. Their thinking, orientation
or ideology put other factors rather then the customer first. Let us
examine these below.
Production Oriented: The focus of the business is
not the needs of the customer, but of reducing costs by mass production.
By reaching economies of scale the business will maximize profits by
reducing costs.
Product Orientation: The company believes that they
have a superior product, based on quality and features, and because
of this they feel their customers will like it also.
Sales Orientation: The focus here is to make the product,
and then try to sell it to the target market. However, the problem could
be that consumers do not like what is being sold to them.
Market Orientation: Puts the customer at the heart
of the business. The organization tries to understand the needs of the
customers by using appropriate research methods, Appropriate processes
are developed to make sure information from customers is fed back into
the heart of the organisation. In essence all activities in the organisation
are based around the customer. The customer is truly king!
In today’s competitive world putting the customer at the heart
of the operation is strategically important. Whilst some organizations
in certain industries may follow anything other then the market orientation
concept, those that follow the market orientation concept have a greater
chance of being successful.