Basic Marketing: A Global Managerial Approach

Perreault−McCarthy: Basic
Marketing: A
Global−Managerial
Approach, 14/e

4. Evaluating Opportunities
   in the Changing Marketing
   Environment

Text © The McGraw−Hill

Companies, 2002

Evaluating Opportunities in the Changing Marketing Environment 95

A company must decide where it’s going, or it may fall into the trap expressed

so well by the quotation: “Having lost sight of our objective, we redoubled our

efforts.” Company objectives should shape the direction and operation of the

whole business.

It is difficult to set objectives that really guide the present and future develop-

ment of a company. The process forces top management to look at the whole

business, relate its present objectives and resources to the external environment,

and then decide what the firm wants to accomplish in the future.

The marketing manager should be heard when the company is setting objectives.

But setting whole-company objectives—within resource limits—is ultimately the

responsibility of top management. In this sense, whole-company objectives are usu-

ally outside the marketing manager’s “control.”

It would be convenient if a company could set one objective—such as making

a profit—and let that serve as the guide. Actually, however, setting objectives is

much more complicated, which helps explain why it’s often done poorly—or not

done at all.

The following three objectives provide a useful starting point for setting a firm’s

objectives. They should be sought togetherbecause in the long run a failure in even

one of the three areas can lead to total failure of the business. A business should:

1. Engage in specific activities that will perform a socially and economically use-
   ful function.


2. Develop an organization to carry on the business and implement its strategies.


3. Earn enough profit to survive.^2

The first objective isn’t just a “do-gooder” objective. Businesses can’t exist with-

out the approval of consumers. If a firm’s activities appear to be contrary to the

consumer “good,” the firm can be wiped out almost overnight by political or legal

action—or consumers’ own negative responses.

In creating its new website, Gap’s

objective was to complement and

support its bricks and mortar

stores rather than just cannibalize

in-store sales. So, Gap Online

features sizes and styles, like

maternity clothes, that are not in

stock in regular stores.

Objectives Should Set Firm’s Course

Three basic objectives

provide guidelines

Should be socially

useful