Marketing Mix Proposals and Strategic Implementation Plans

Marketing Principles and Organizational Transformation

For the fundamental concepts, principles, and practices of marketing to be effective from a strategic standpoint in transforming an organization, they must extend beyond theoretical frameworks to deliver actual results. The idea of being customer-centered as an organization needs to begin with its leaders changing their mindset away from designing processes, procedures, and systems that measure internal efficiency, toward measuring customer satisfaction instead. The hard reality is that changing any of these areas within an organization is very difficult, as resistance to change is rampant and many people fear it.

Despite this resistance, measuring a company's performance based on customer satisfaction is the first step in transforming an organization from being relevant only part of the time to being essential to a customer's success. When marketing is at the center of an organization, the focus is not on what will impress senior management or gain status in their eyes — it is on what will meet and exceed the expectations of the customer. When customer expectations are put first and an organization assesses its value from this standpoint, transformation is much easier to accomplish and internal change is accepted much faster (Boyd, Chandy, & Cunha, 2010). When a company becomes centered on its customers, its entire vision of who it is changes, and transformation becomes much easier to sustain over the long term because customers' needs come first.

One of the primary reasons why so many organizations lose their way is that they lose sight of who the customer is. Without that galvanizing focus, organizations tend to become balkanized — concentrated on the key performance indicators (KPIs), metrics, and ratios that matter only within a given department. With a strong marketing orientation, organizations find the impetus to create greater collaboration and shared ownership over a common vision of excelling for customers and winning their loyalty.

Examples of companies that have attained this include many in the hospitality and services industries, which rely on continual measures of customer satisfaction and feedback to define their service mix and strategies. Marriott International, for example, relies on SERVQUAL-based measures of performance to evaluate each of its properties monthly across five dimensions of customer satisfaction and customer experience management (Sengupta, Krapfel, & Pusateri, 1997). Insights from this analysis have provided the global hotel chain with a clearer understanding of how to manage customer expectations through more effective communications and service strategies over time (So & King, 2010). This has led to higher levels of customer loyalty and profitability over the long term.

Marketing was the catalyst for Marriott's shift from being entirely focused on costs to being centered on customers' expectations and needs, which ultimately led to higher profitability (Sengupta, Krapfel, & Pusateri, 1997). Concentrating first on the level of customer satisfaction being achieved, and then examining how to trim costs to remain profitable, gave Marriott International insights into how to sustain and grow loyalty even as costs were being reduced. This strategy succeeded because it placed customer experience at the center of operations-based decision-making, leading the hotel chain to focus more on customer concerns and their operational implications, and less on purely internal measures of performance. With a marketing-based operations strategy, Marriott International was able to grow profitability and strengthen customer loyalty over time (Sengupta, Krapfel, & Pusateri, 1997).

Marketing Mix Proposal: Build-to-Order Netbooks

Marketing's transition away from product- or benefits-based messaging toward supporting the shared values and aspirations of consumers is changing how marketing strategies are defined, implemented, and measured. Understanding unmet needs at both the functional and psychological level — alongside the need for more effective tracking and measurement of results — is also rapidly reshaping the field. This section defines two marketing mix proposals for products designed to excel at meeting the needs of distinct customer groups while providing an organization with profitable growth.

The first proposal is for build-to-order tablet PCs that can be configured to the customer's unique requirements, both from an aesthetic and functional standpoint. The current trend in netbooks is to sell them as loss leaders for telecommunications service providers, with the specific goal of driving up usage rates (Sullivan & Miller, 2010). This proposal, by contrast, centers on personalization — providing users with the opportunity to uniquely express who they are and reflect their individual tastes. The use of social media is revolutionizing how people communicate across all demographic and socioeconomic groups (Bernoff & Li, 2008), and a customizable build-to-order netbook would give students and working professionals a device that keeps them connected with friends and colleagues while maintaining secure Internet access.

The value proposition is based on convenience and privacy: the bundled 3G network would provide 256-bit encryption for each web browsing session and security for e-commerce, email, and social media applications. Positioning also includes support for customizing the exterior of the netbook to match individual preferences and tastes. With 3G service bundled in, this product would be clearly differentiated from loss-leader netbooks offered by telecommunications carriers. Providing customers with the option to customize their device to individual preferences further strengthens the unique value proposition and market position. Using two-tier distribution channels, the netbook could potentially sell up to 1,000 units per month through high-tech distributors, dealers, and online retailers.