558 The Marketing Book
None of these are complete or universal
approaches to the implementation issue, but all
are capable of generating insights and a better
understanding of what is necessary for market-
ing strategies to be effectively implemented.
This leads finally to the consideration of
internal marketing strategy as a framework for
building and applying a marketing implementa-
tion strategy. The attraction of this framework is
that it mirrors and parallels the conventional
external marketing strategy, and allows us to use
the same terms and analytical methods with the
critical internal customers that we are accus-
tomed to use with the conventional external
customers. However, we noted that the source of
the internal marketing model is in the services
field, where internal marketing is largely con-
cerned with improving the performance of
operational employees at the point of sale. In
this present context, internal marketing is a
different and strategic issue, which is concerned
with identifying and acting on those things and
people which have to change inside the com-
pany for the external strategy to be effectively
implemented. We examined some cases of
internal marketing strategy in companies to
make the further point that there are different
organizational levels at which internal market-
ing may operate. While it may be easiest to see
internal marketing operating at the formal level
- where the product is the plan or strategy, the
price is the cost of change, and communication
and distribution are about formal communica-
tions – it is perhaps even more important to see
internal marketing operating at the deeper level
of the decision-making processes and cultural
attributes of the organization. It is only in this
way that we can get beyond the production of
simple action plans and directives, and confront
the underlying pressures towards maintaining
the status quo, organizational inertia and ‘defen-
sive routines’ to avoid change – i.e. the real
implementation issues in our organizations.
There are no simple and easy-to-apply
methods to deal with the implementation issue
in marketing. It is hoped that the approaches
suggested here may be useful at the operational
level. Nonetheless, the implementation issue
remains one of the greatest practical and
theoretical challenges for the marketing ana-
lyst, consultant, teacher and practitioner for the
future.References
Achrol, R. S. (1991) Evolution of the marketing
organization: new forms for turbulent envir-
onments,Journal of Marketing, 55 (4), 77–94.
Aldrich, H. and Herker, D. (1977) Boundary
spanning roles and organizational structure,
Academy of Management Review, 2 , April,
217–230.
Argyris, C. (1985) Strategy, Change and Defensive
Routines, Harper & Row, New York.
Berthon, P., Hulbert, J. M. and Pitt, L. F. (1997)
Brands, Brand Managers, and the Management
of Brands, Marketing Science Institute, Bos-
ton, MA, Report No. 97–122.
Bonoma, T. V. (1985) The Marketing Edge: Making
Strategies Work, Free Press, New York.
Bonoma, T. V. and Clark, B. (1990) Assessing
marketing performance, in Bonoma, T. V.
and Kosnik, T. J. (eds), Marketing Manage-
ment: Text and Cases, Irwin, Homewood,
IL.
Cespedes, F. V. and Piercy, N. F. (1996) Imple-
menting marketing strategy, Journal of Mar-
keting Management, 12 , 135–160.
Cravens, D. W and Piercy, N. F. (2002) Strategic
Marketing, 7th edn, Irwin/McGraw-Hill,
New York.
Cravens, D. W., Piercy, N. F. and Shipp, S. H.
(1996) New organizational forms for compet-
ing in highly dynamic environments: the
network paradigm, British Journal of Manage-
ment, 7 , 203–218.
Cravens, D. W., Greenley, G., Piercy, N. F. and
Slater, S. (1997) Integrating contemporary
strategic management perspectives, Long
Range Planning, 30 , 493–506.
Darling, J. R. and Taylor, R. E. (1989) A model
for reducing internal resistance to change in a