Basic Marketing: A Global Managerial Approach

Perreault−McCarthy: Basic

Marketing: A

Global−Managerial

Approach, 14/e

20. Managing Marketing’s
    Link with Other Functional
    Areas

Text © The McGraw−Hill

Companies, 2002

578 Chapter 20

The marketing concept says that everyone in a firm should work together to sat-

isfy customer needs at a profit. Once a marketing strategy has been developed and

turned into a marketing plan, the blueprint for what needs to be done is in place.

So throughout the text we’ve developed concepts and how-to approaches relevant

to marketing strategy planning, implementation, and control.

From the outset, we’ve emphasized that what is a good marketing strategy—

selection of a target market and a marketing mix to meet target customers’

needs—depends on the fit with the specific firm and its market environment—

what it’s able to do and what it wants to do. Now we’ll broaden our view to take

a closer look at some of the important ways that marketing links to other func-

tional areas.

Our emphasis is not on the technical details of other functional areas but rather

on the most important ways that cross-functional links impact your ability to

develop marketing strategies and plans that really work. See Exhibit 20-1.

could reinvest. With produc-

tion capacity in place, ITW

targeted marketing mixes at

other firms with similar needs.

Today, there are hundreds of

different types of ITW’s Nexus

brand buckles. To get a sense

for the variety, check out

ITWNexus.com. Millions of

them are used not only in life

jackets but in hundreds of

other products, ranging from

belts on swimsuits to straps

on backpacks and safety hel-

mets. Adding a wide variety of

special buckles for these dif-

ferent markets quickly

contributed to profits because

most of the major fixed costs

had already been covered.

ITW has developed many

other innovative products and

marketing mixes focused on

the needs of specific market

segments. For example, ITW

makes Kiwi-Lok, a nylon fas-

tener that New Zealand

farmers use to secure their

kiwi plants. It’s not a fluke that

ITW saw this unusual fasten-

ing need. As one ITW

executive put it, “We try to sell

where our competitors

aren’t”—one reason why ITW

now serves customers from

operations in more than

35 countries. Although ITW is

a very large company with

many different product lines, it

is able to stay in close contact

with its customers because all

of its businesses are locally

managed. At the same time, it

expands its reach by maintain-

ing more than 90 different

websites for product lines

focused at different sets of

business customers (but you

can link to any of the websites

from ITW’s home page at

http://www.itwinc.com).

ITW organizes all of its

activities, including how it sets

up its factories, to adjust to the

needs of distinct target mar-

kets. ITW serves large-volume

segments with “focused

factories” that concentrate on

quickly producing large quanti-

ties of a single product line at a

low cost. It handles limited

production for small segments

in special “batches” on

equipment dedicated to short

runs. This flexible approach

helps ITW fill customers’ orders

faster than competitors—

which is yet another reason for

the company’s success.^1

Marketing in the Broader Context

Cross-functional links
affect strategy planning