Do Business Well

Some businesses reach the size or position where a great deal of internal communication and contact are necessary. Hand in hand with the increase in necessary internal communication grows a plethora of less necessary and even superfluous communication. A business may reach a stage where the extent of internal communication and reporting has got out of hand.

1. Eliminate unnecessary internal communication and reporting

People could be asking for information for the sake of it. It may take five minutes to read a report but it may take the writer and secretary hours or even days of research to produce it. They are expensive people — don’t waste their time. Continue Reading »

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The quarters have an old industrial feel, with gritty exteriors that belie the company’s sleek online identity’ (1999: 3). Many other ‘new economy’ employees work in call centres that have been dubbed ‘the new sweatshops’ because of pressure to work as quickly as possible under electronic surveillance that monitors, for example, the number of customer emails responded to per hour. In these service-intensive organizations, the power is in the hands of lower-level, front-line employees, upon whose handling of customer services managers must depend for the achievement of organizational objectives. As Piercy notes, ‘Too many employees who deal directly with customers are damaging the product, service or corporate brand every time they open their mouths’ (2000: 187). This means that intend marketing needs Continue Reading »

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A key role of modern marketing is that of a management `mindset’ implemented throughout an organization rather than confined to a particular department (Payne 1995). This viewpoint regards marketing as a guiding management philosophy or ‘attitude of mind’ that puts the customer first, and it is commonly described s a ‘marketing orientation’. It is a much broader view of the role of marketing an has been envisaged in the past, and it cuts across a wide range of organizational functions. Successful adaptation of a marketing orientation requires effective management of all stakeholder groups (this means people with a particular — although not necessarily the same Continue Reading »

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The key role of research in effective marketing planning was introduced. The marketing audit comprises research and analysis of the internal and external environment as follows:

• The internal audit reviews existing marketing activities and assesses their effectiveness in terms of contribution to revenue, brand enhancement, customer service, customer retention, market share or sales leads.
• The external audit considers the micro-environmental influences (customers, suppliers, partners, distributors and competitors) and macro-environmental influences (political, economic, social, technological and legal) within which the company operates.

The circles representing different aspects of the business environment show that from a company’s perspective, the various components of the micro-environment are intimately connected with the operations of its business, but the macro-environment is one step removed. This means that a company has some degree of control over the micro-environmental influences, but cannot directly influence the ‘bigger picture’ of the macro-environment, which would include such issues as interest rate changes, new legislation, etc. By conducting a marketing audit, a company can at least monitor and be aware of the implications of likely changes in the macro-environment, even if it cannot directly control them.

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