2.1 Introduction
In Chapter 1 we studied the evolution of marketing philosophies from the production orientation through the sales orientation to the marketing orientation and societal marketing orientation from both a general and port perspective. Unless a business organisation adopts a marketing orientation, it is a matter of time before it closes down. This also means that the organisation needs to be aware of the environment it operates within.
An organisation has two main environments ¾ the internal and external environments ¾ with the latter containing many uncontrollable factors. As the marketing department operates within an organisation , the marketing manager may find that there are factors that are beyond his/her control. The internal constraints may come from the other departments within the organisation.
The controllable factors of the internal environment revolve around the marketing mix, which we will find is expanded for services organisations. The marketing manager must make decisions about the balance of each component to provide the optimum mix and time its implementation, taking into account the uncontrollable factors of both the internal and external environments.
To become a successful marketing manager we need to plan our marketing activities. Planning involves analysis of environmental factors and generates outcomes of that analysis in the form of strategies to guide our marketing activities. This is the focus of this chapter.