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 599

point that changing people usually takes time—and only so much change can be

absorbed effectively in a limited period.

A marketing manager who ignores the ripple effects of a change in strategy

may later expect everyone else in the organization to bend over backward, work

overtime, and otherwise do everything possible to meet a schedule that was put

together with little, or no, forethought. Certainly there are cases of heroic efforts

by people in organizations to turn someone’s vision into a reality. Yet it’s more

typical for such a plan to fall behind schedule, to run up unnecessary costs, or

to just plain fail. Marketing managers who work that way are likely to be criti-

cized for “not having the time to do it right the first time, but having the time

to do it over again.”

If rapidly expanding marketing efforts involve human resource challenges, deci-

sions to drop products, channels of distribution, or even certain types of customers

can be even more traumatic. In these situations, people always worry that someone

will lose his or her job—and that isn’t easy.

Dropping products or making other changes that would result in a cutback on

people doing certain jobs must be planned very carefully and with a good dose of

humanity. To the extent possible, it’s important to plan a phase-out period so that

people can make other plans. During the last decade, too many firms downsized so

rapidly that long-time employees were abruptly left with no job. Then when a strong

economy required growth and more people, they couldn’t understand why it was

hard for them to recruit!

If a phase-out is carefully planned—considering not only the implications for

production facilities and contracts with outside firms but also the people inside—it

may be possible to develop strategies that will create exciting new jobs for those

who would otherwise be displaced.^16

This line of thinking highlights again that marketing is the heart that pumps

the lifeblood through an organization. Marketing managers who create profitable

marketing strategies and implement them well create a need for a firm’s

production workers, accountants, financial managers, lawyers, and—yes—even

its human resources people. In this chapter we’ve talked about marketing links

with those other functions; but when you get down to brass tacks, organizations

and the various departments within them consist of individuals.If the marketing

manager makes good strategy decisions—ones that lead to satisfied customers and

profits—each of the individuals in the organization has a chance to prosper

and grow.

Plan time for changes

from the outset

Cutbacks need human

resource plans too

Marketing pumps life

into an organization

Conclusion

Even when everyone in an entire company embraces

the marketing concept, coordinating marketing strate-

gies and plans with other functional areas is a challenge.

Yet it’s a challenge that marketing managers must ad-

dress. It doesn’t make sense to select a strategy that the

firm can’t implement. And implementing new plans usu-

ally requires money, people, and a way to produce goods

or services the firm will sell.

Cooperation between the marketing manager and the

finance people helps to ensure that there’s enough money

available for the initial one-time investments and ongo-

ing working capital needed to implement a marketing

plan. If money comes from outside investors, the market-

ing manager may need to develop a strategy that satisfies

them as well as customers. If the money available is lim-

ited, the strategy may need to be scaled back in various