TABLE OF CONTENTS About this chapter
Strategic planning aims to integrate and coordinate activity and give focus to the organization. Recognizing that strategic decisions have behavioural, organizational and analytical elements enables many of the barriers to successful implementation to be overcome.
After reading this chapter, you will understand:
The difference between corporate and marketing plans.
Strategic and tactical approaches to marketing.
The reason for, and barriers to, successful planning.
Analytical, behavioural and organizational dimensions of planning.
Structure of a typical strategic marketing plan.
Marketing managers plan in order to complete tasks on time and without exceeding pre-set resource limits. It is likely that objectives, targets and budget will be set as part of the overall corporate planning and budgeting process. The task is to translate these factors into a workable marketing plan.
When developing a plan, the process involves choosing certain courses of action and ruling out other possible options. Planning should be systematic, structured and involves three key components: (1) objectives - what has to be achieved; (2) strategy (or actions) - defining how the objectives are to be achieved; and (3) resource implications - the resources required to implement the strategy.
Clearly, it is important to understand the interface between marketing and corporate strategy. This is best illustrated by considering the hierarchical structure of an organization. Senior management formulates objectives and strategy for the entire organization (or a strategic business unit - SBU). Managers in various functional areas, such as marketing, contribute to the process...
