Organizational Orientation
In this sense, a firm's marketing department is often seen as of prime importance within the functional level of an organization.
Information from an organization's marketing department would be used to guide the actions of other department's within the firm. As an example, a marketing department could ascertain (via marketing research) that consumers desired a new type of product, or a new usage for an existing product. With this in mind, the marketing department would inform the R&D department to create a prototype of a product/service based on consumers' new desires.
Inter-departmental conflicts may occur, should a firm adhere to the marketing orientation. Production may oppose the installation, support and servicing of new capital stock, which may be needed to manufacture a new product. Finance may oppose the required capital expenditure, since it could undermine a healthy cash flow for the organization.
A marketing orientation has been defined as a "philosophy of business management." or "a corporate state of mind" or as an "organization culture" Although scholars continue to debate the precise nature of specific orientations that inform marketing practice, the most commonly cited orientations are as follows:
- Product oriented: mainly concerned with the quality of its product. It has largely been supplanted by the marketing orientation, except for haute couture and arts marketing.
- Production oriented: specializes in producing as much as possible of a given product or service in order to achieve economies of scale or economies of scope. It dominated marketing practice from the 1860s to the 1930s, yet can still be found in some companies or industries. Specifically, Kotler and Armstrong note that the production philosophy is "one of the oldest philosophies that guides sellers is still useful in some situations."
- Sales or sales-orientation: focuses on the selling/promotion of the firm's existing products, rather than developing new products to satisfy unmet needs or wants primarily through promotion and direct sales techniques, largely for "unsought goods" in industrial companies. A 2011 meta analyses found that the factors with the greatest impact on sales performance are a salesperson's sales related knowledge (market segments, presentation skills, conflict resolution, and products), degree of adaptiveness , role clarity , cognitive aptitude, motivation and interest in a sales role).
- Marketing/Market orientation: This is the most common orientation used in contemporary marketing, and is a customer-centric approach based on products that suit new consumer tastes. These firm engage in extensive market research, use R&D (Research & Development), and then utilize promotion techniques.
The marketing orientation includes:
Customer orientation: A firm in the market economy can survive by producing goods that people are willing and able to buy. Consequently, ascertaining consumer demand is vital for a firm's future viability and even existence as a going concern.
Organizational orientation: The marketing department is of prime importance within the functional level of an organization. Information from the marketing department is used to guide the actions of a company's other departments. A marketing department could ascertain that consumers desired a new type of product, or a new usage for an existing product. With this in mind, the marketing department would inform the R&D department to create a prototype of a product/service based on consumers' new desires. The production department would then start to manufacture the product. The finance department may oppose required capital expenditures since it could undermine a healthy cash flow for the organization.
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