Cultural Approach Can Be Considered

¶ … cultural approach can be considered as deriving from a participative or democratic leadership style where consensus is reached from top to lower levels of the organization. I prefer this approach because I consider the marketing strategy is an integrative part of organizational vision. This approach to marketing strategies ensures the advantage of being easier assimilated by all levels within the organization because such strategies express the organizational culture that everyone accepts (Huber, 2011).

However, in my view on this cultural approach does not mean that all employees should be involved in the decision making process and be allowed to make decision, but they should be invited to express their opinion on strategies that affect them. This is also intended to help management identify a series of threats and opportunities that they would otherwise not observe because they are not in contact with such. Employees can provide important feedback on implementing marketing strategies.

By reducing barriers between people that develop the strategy and those that implement it, the company benefits by having all level employees work for reaching common objectives. In addition to this, ensuring a certain level of employee empowerment is considered to significantly contribute to employee satisfaction which can determine increased levels of performance. The disadvantage of this approach is that requires more time for implementation in comparison with other approaches. The situations where I think I would prefer a command approach are represented by contingency situations that require quick actions.

In such situations it is not necessary for all levels employees to be involved in the marketing strategy approach. In most situations I would prefer the cultural approach because it ensures a level of success by involving the feedback from all employee levels. 2. Many mature markets have become commoditized and price is an important factor that influences purchasing decisions. However, price is not always the most or only important factor that determines customers to purchase. Therefore, it is important that companies increase their efforts in customer relationship management.

The most important factors that people make purchasing decision on are represented by price, time, quality, and convenience, or a combination of these. Sometimes people pay higher prices for certain products simply because it saves time from searching for cheaper products. Others prefer to pay extra for higher quality. And there are people that prefer convenience to price and quality. In my opinion, efficient customer relationship management identifies the preferred purchasing factor of customers and differently addresses these customer segments.

Companies' customer relationship management efforts are easier and more efficient because of the use of online tools and marketing and of social media. These methods allow companies to develop native advertising campaigns (Hallett, 2014). This means that they can identify their customer segments' preferences and address them in accordance with these different preferences, so that customers think the marketing campaign was designed for each of them. This significant improves relationships between companies and their customers, and increases customer loyalty.

Therefore, companies should focus on intensifying customer relationship management efforts, but also on adapting them to modern environments. Tactics where customers are addressed by phone by company representatives might not be efficient for younger customer segments. Market segmentation should not only be used for marketing strategies, but also for customer relationship management. 3. I must admit that I do not entirely agree with the statement according to which developing the marketing strategy is more important than implementing the marketing strategy because if the strategy is flawed the implementation doesn't matter.

The success of marketing strategies relies on their development but also on their implementation. It is important to identify the areas where threats can be produced. The marketing strategy is developed in order to be successful under certain conditions. But if other factors emerge and change the conditions in which the strategy must be applied, the success of its application relies on the implementation process. Therefore, it is important that people implementing the strategy are able to adapt it to different changes determined by environmental factors.

And in cases where the development of the marketing strategy is flawed, the implementation team can provide the necessary feedback in order to improve it. This is why strategists and implementers should work together and communicate during the implementation process (Pride & Ferrell, 2010). In addition to this, the implementation team can provide efficient advice on the results of the strategy's implementation in order for the strategy team to develop more efficient marketing strategies. The success of marketing strategies relies on developing them, but also on their implementation.

By offering feedback between the development and implementation teams, the efficiency of strategies can be improved. It is also helpful to develop flexible strategies that can adapt to the necessities determined by environmental factors. 4. In some areas customer power shifts are obvious, but in other areas this is somewhat an illusion. There are industries where customers have more power because of a large number of suppliers. This is mostly the case of products of lower prices, like groceries.

In other markets, customer power has not modified, like the automotive industry where it is difficult for smaller companies to enter and to provide lower priced products. There are markets, like the cosmetics industry, where the number of products and companies seems to have increased. Customers on this market have a great number of products to choose from (Hooley et al., 2004). However, most of companies in this market have been acquired by large corporations, and apparent competitors are actually members of the same larger group.

This is the case of L'Oreal that has acquired Maybelline, Garnier, Vichy, but also luxury cosmetics producers. Therefore, customers on the cosmetics market think they have many different companies to purchase from, when in fact most of them are owned by the same corporation that controls the market. The customer power shift cannot be considered uniform across markets and industries. Companies' marketing strategies must adapt to increased product selection. This objective can be reached through mergers and acquisitions, but it can also be determined by companies developing.