Text 4. Learning about Marketing

The marketing concept that emerged in the 1950s and has dominated marketing thought for nearly 40 years has three parts:

1. A consumer orientation, that is, to find out what consumers want and give it to them.

2. The training of employees from all departments in customer service so that everyone in the organization has the same objective — consumer satisfaction.

3. A profit organization, that is, market goods and services that will earn the firm a profit and enable it to survive and expand to serve more consumer wants and needs.

Today's marketing philosophy is market- or consumer-oriented. No longer companies manufacture a product and give it to salespeople to sell without first considering the customer. Firms developed complementary goals of both achieving a profitable sales volume satisfying their customers. Marketing, rather than selling, became the focus of business sales activities.

As business people have come to recognize that marketing is vitally important to the success of the firm, an entirely new way of business thinking — a new philosophy — has evolved. It is called the marketing concept, and is based on three fundamental beliefs. These beliefs are:

• All company planning and operations should be customer-oriented.

• The goal of the firm should be profitable sales volume and not just volume for the sake of volume alone.

• All marketing activities in a firm should be organizationally coordinated.

The marketing concept is a business philosophy, that says, the customers' want-satisfaction is the economic and social justification for a firm's existence. Consequently, all company activities should be devoted to determining customers' wants and then satisfying them, while still making a profit.

Unfortunately, many people, including some business activities, still do not understand the difference between selling and marketing. In fact, many peope think the terms are synonymous.

Under the selling concept, a company makes a product and then uses various selling methods to persuade customers to buy the product. In effect, the company is bending consumer demand to fit the company's supply. Just the opposite occurs under the marketing concept. The company determines what the customer wants and then develops a product to satisfy that want and still yield a profit. Now, the company bends its supply to the will of consumer demand.

For a business enterprise to realize the full benefits of the marketing concept, that philosophy must be translated into action. This means that: (1) marketing activities must be fully coordinated and managed, and (2) the chief marketing executive must be accorded an important role in company planning.

First, the core of marketing is customer want-satisfaction, and that is the basic social and economic justification for the existence of virtually all organizations. Second, while many departments in a company are essential to its growth, it is marketing's responsibility to generate revenues (Ch. Futrell. Fundamentals of Selling. Boston: IRWIN, 1990).

Vocabulary list:

concept — концепция;

to emerge — появляться;

a profit organization — коммерческая организация;

complementary — дополнительный, добавочный;

sales volume — объем продаж;

vitally important — жизненно важный;

to evolve — развиваться, развертываться, развивать (идею, план);

belief — вера, убеждение, мнение;

consequently — в результате, следовательно, поэтому;

justification — оправдание;

virtually — фактически, в сущности.