Marketing implementation, organizational change and internal marketing strategy 547
in a critical market was floundering. In this
example, the information is laid out in a
worksheet format as discussed elsewhere
(Piercy, 2002), but the important point of the case
is the great contrast between the strategic intent
as defined by senior managers and the percep-
tion of the real marketplace situation, or strate-
gic reality, held by key members of the
salesforce. This disparity was true in each area of
the marketing programme, as well as in the
resulting strategic position in this market. The
barriers to implementation of the marketing
strategy were fundamental, representing very
real gaps: in understanding the customer’s view
of the product and the value of the company’s
total offering to the market; in attacking the real
drivers in the critical customer decision-making
units; in the company’s real strength in commu-
nications and distribution coverage; and in the
real future for the company in this market. As
can be seen, this analysis provided a very
different agenda to be addressed in implement-
ing the marketing strategy in question and, it
should be noted, not the agenda that manage-
ment was expecting to identify. Their view had
moved from blaming the salesforce for under-
performing to reconsidering the assumptions
they had made in building their marketing
strategy, and questioning the attractiveness of
this market as a continuing target.
The point of this exercise is that it can
produce useful insights into the marketing
implementation problem in a company in two
ways. First, it can uncover how well the
company translates its marketing strategies
into the practicalities of integrated operational
marketing programmes and plans of action.
Second, this analysis forces management to
look at the business from the point of view of
operational personnel and paying customers,
which can be very revealing in its own right,
and frequently uncovers yet more of the under-
lying reasons why marketing strategies do not
reach the marketplace level of the business.
Generally, this type of analysis is likely to
uncover strategic gaps which may be explained
for the following types of reasons:
Because there are too many internal barriers
and obstacles, reflecting both open issues like
resource and skills shortages, but also more
covert questions like political resistance to
change.
Because line management simply does not
accept the validity of the strategic intent, i.e.
they have no commitment of ‘buy-in’ to the
marketing strategy.
Because the strategic intent is out of line with
real corporate capabilities, i.e. what the
organization is really capable of doing, as
opposed to top management’s idealized view
of how things should be in their company.
Because when marketing plans and strategies
have been constructed, the implementation
issue has not been addressed in an explicit and
detailed way – simply expecting things to
happen because a plan has been written is
often ineffective.
Because line managers do not understand or
take seriously the strategic intent represented
by the marketing plans and strategy.Each of these possible conclusions may lead us
to different aspects of the implementation issue
in marketing. This is recommended as a start-
ing point which leads us quickly towards
specific issues, rather than just the general
question of implementation. Attention now
turns to how we may be able to address the
strategic gaps we have identified and their
underlying causes, and the possible barriers to
this process of change.Implementation barriers in marketing
It should be borne in mind that frequently it is
not enough simply to locate and identify
implementation problems in a company. To cope
with those problems is likely to require some-
what more effort. Indeed, there is an underlying
danger that marketing executives tend to under-
estimate the degree and type of change that are