Marketing Planning

In the fast-changing and increasingly competitive business environment of the late 1990s, the right marketing approach for today's conditions will almost certainly not be right for those of tomorrow. No company's strategy or operations can afford to be frozen in time and, as the new millennium draws near, the ability to develop effective marketing plans which enable the firm to become more responsive and adaptable to the marketplace will, perhaps more than ever before, differentiate the winners from the losers. Therefore, in this assignment, as a marketing manager in the hospitality industry, how managers strategically utilise marketing planning as a marketing management tool will be discussed.

"Marketing planning is a systematic process involving the assessment of marketing opportunities and resources, the determination of marketing objectives, and developmenet of a plan for implementation." (Simkin & Ferrell,2006)

The role of marketing planning and the advantages it offers are well established (cf. McDonald, 1999; Simkin, 2000). It is widely accepted that businesses use this process to prioritise opportunities and strategic options, develop marketing programmes and instil greater business direction (Dibb et al., 1996). Businesses that formalise their marketing planning are often better at spotting and responding to changes in their competitive environment. Inter- and intra-departmental communication and co-operation may be improved and better marketing co-ordination enjoyed (McDonald, 1992a, 1999). Marketing planning can improve an organisation's ability to handle the complexities of their trading environment, thus delivering tangible economic benefits.

There are three fundamental principles which underpin the proposed planning framework. The first principle is to adopt a marketing orientation, or philosophy, of business. In contrast to a production-oriented company which focuses on producing technically excellent products at the lowest possible cost, or a sales-oriented company which focuses on persuasion techniques, the marketing-oriented company, above all else, focuses on satisfying its customers (Keegan et al., 1992). The second principle is to employ a comprehensive planning approach. The four "classic" functions of management are analysing, planning, organising and controlling (Kotler, 1991), and to be effective, marketing planning must be comprehensive with respect to all four. Any approach which does not involve them all will almost certainly be sub-optimal because they are mutually supportive of one another in enabling a company to successfully create and keep satisfied customers over the long term. The third principle is to "keep on" marketing planning. The fast-changing nature of the modern business environment means that marketing planning should be a continuous, ever-evolving process, which seeks to exploit these changes to the company's best advantage. (Brooksbank, 1999).

"The marketing planning process has four basic stages, similar to other planning models in that they ask the following questions in sequence: where are we now? Where are we going? How do we get there? and Are we getting there? " (Stokes, D, 1994) It is a circular process: it analyses the existing situation, sets objectives based on this analysis, decides appropriate methods to meet the objectives, and evaluates the impact of the methods used.

The analysis stage includes finding out all the information that currently exists about the internal and external enviroments of the project, then filling any obvious gaps through research. The marketing plan is central to the planning and development of any organisation. It will have a significant influence on a whole range of issues from the cash flow to the scheduling of production or service delivery. A marketing plan will take as its starting point the objectives og the corporation or organisation. Organisation needs to realise that what needs will be satisfied, or benefits provided by the organisation's existence? And how will the organisation be different from others and so on. Questions such as what does the organisation want to achieve this year, and over the next three to five years? What are the top priorities in the short term and the longer term are the organisation's specific objectives. For example, "the mission of BRITISH AIRWAYS is ‘To be the best and most successful company in the airline industry', and their goals are ‘To secure a leading share of air travel business worldwide with a significant presence in all major feofraphic markets.' And ‘To provide superior service and good value for money in every market segment in which we compete.'" (Stokes, D, 1994) To analyse a company's competitive situation, information is needed and "marketing research" may be defined as the process by which