TABLE OF CONTENTS Part 3 examines issues relating to implementation and control. Any strategic activity must address two basic issues selecting a competitive strategy and putting it into practice. Implementation and control address the second issue. Managers should never underestimate the importance, or indeed complexity, of putting it into practice .
Chapter 13 assesses the general issues pertaining to implementation and how to build effective implementation approaches within the context of marketing projects. Chapter 14 is concerned with the application of financial measures, performance appraisal and benchmarking as control mechanisms. The concept of control loops applied to marketing is also examined.
Implementation is critical to the success or failure of any venture. Basic generic management principles (e.g. leadership, team building and delegation) contribute to the process. Marketing managers must evaluate the ease, or otherwise, of implementation and deploy project management techniques to achieve desired goals. Additionally, internal marketing can ease the process of implementation.
A key maxim in business is: never acquire a business you don t understand how to run. Equally, it would be true to say: never adopt a strategy you don t understand how to implement.
It can be said that, in terms of strategy, planning is the easy part. With a basic grounding in marketing, most managers could sit down with a blank sheet of paper and develop an outline marketing plan. This plan may contain all the...
