Strategic Marketing
Why is Strategic Marketing Planning necessary?
Basically because "if you don't know where you are going, any road will take you there". If there is not clear
direction, efforts will be uncoordinated, priorities confused and resources misallocated.
Cranfield School of Management reported the main conclusion of a four-year study into how British industrial companies carry out their
strategic marketing planning. Part of the problem of Britain's relative economic decline, the report suggest "can be explained by an almost total lack of understanding of marketing by senior managers. However, when it comes to strategic marketing planning, that ignorance is devastating."
It seems that 90% of British companies do not carry out proper strategic marketing planning at all, "instead they complete budgets and
forecasts". Most forecasting and budgeting systems "tend merely to project the current business unchanged into the future - a sort of tunnel vision."
Philip Kotler (Principles of Marketing) makes the same point in commenting on a standard budgeting approach. "The product manager estimates market size and share by extrapolating past trends. They should consider changes in the marketing environment that would lead to a different forecast."
The Cranfield Study suggests the following as the most frequently mentioned problems "among
companies which rely on traditional sales forecasting and budgeting in the
absence of a strategic marketing planning system."
• Lost opportunities for profit
• Meaningless numbers in long range plans
• Unrealistic objectives
• Lack of actionable market information
• Inter-functional strife
• Management frustration
• Proliferation of products and markets
• Wasted promotional expenditure
• Pricing confusion
• Growing vulnerability to change
• Loss of control over the business
Source: CIM - Preparing a Marketing Plan
Basically because "if you don't know where you are going, any road will take you there". If there is not clear
direction, efforts will be uncoordinated, priorities confused and resources misallocated.
Cranfield School of Management reported the main conclusion of a four-year study into how British industrial companies carry out their
strategic marketing planning. Part of the problem of Britain's relative economic decline, the report suggest "can be explained by an almost total lack of understanding of marketing by senior managers. However, when it comes to strategic marketing planning, that ignorance is devastating."
It seems that 90% of British companies do not carry out proper strategic marketing planning at all, "instead they complete budgets and
forecasts". Most forecasting and budgeting systems "tend merely to project the current business unchanged into the future - a sort of tunnel vision."
Philip Kotler (Principles of Marketing) makes the same point in commenting on a standard budgeting approach. "The product manager estimates market size and share by extrapolating past trends. They should consider changes in the marketing environment that would lead to a different forecast."
The Cranfield Study suggests the following as the most frequently mentioned problems "among
companies which rely on traditional sales forecasting and budgeting in the
absence of a strategic marketing planning system."
• Lost opportunities for profit
• Meaningless numbers in long range plans
• Unrealistic objectives
• Lack of actionable market information
• Inter-functional strife
• Management frustration
• Proliferation of products and markets
• Wasted promotional expenditure
• Pricing confusion
• Growing vulnerability to change
• Loss of control over the business
Source: CIM - Preparing a Marketing Plan
