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

Managing Marketing’s Link with Other Functional Areas 597

A great marketing plan may fail if the right people aren’t available to implement

it. Large firms usually have a separate human resources department staffed by special-

ists who work with others in the firm to ensure that good people are available to do

jobs that need to be done. A small firm may not have a separate department—but

somebody (perhaps the owner or other managers) must deal with people-management

matters, like recruiting and hiring new employees, deciding how people will be com-

pensated, and what to do when a job is not being performed well or is no longer

necessary. Human resource issues are often critically important both in a marketing

manager’s choice among different possible marketing opportunities and in the actual

implementation of marketing plans.

In this section, we’ll briefly consider how and why these issues need to be con-

sidered in planning new strategies and implementing plans—especially plans that

involve major change.

New strategies often involve new and different ways of doing things. Even if such

changes are required to ensure that the firm will survive, changes often upset the

status quo and long-established vested interests of its current employees. A produc-

tion manager who has spent a career becoming an expert in producing fine wood

furniture may not like the idea of switching to an assemble-it-yourself line—even

if that’s what customers want. And when the market maturity stage of the product

life cycle hits, a financial manager who looked like a hero during the profitable

growth stage may not see that the picnic is over and that profit growth will resume

only if the firm takes some risk and invests in a new product concept.

As these examples suggest, many of the people affected by a new strategy may not

be under the control of the marketing manager. And acting alone, the marketing

manager may not be the change agent who can instantly turn everyone in the orga-

nization into an enthusiastic supporter of the plan. However, if the marketing

manager doesn’t think about how a new strategy will affect people, and how what

people do will affect the success of the strategy, even the best strategy may fail.

People Put Plans into Action

People are an

important resource

New strategies usually

require people changes

New marketing strategies often

require new people or new skills

or both. Firms like GP and

Caliber help other companies

develop training programs so that

they have the people they need

to implement their strategies.