Strategic Marketing: Planning and Control, Third Edition

■ Market sensing

There is some overlap between the aims and operation of scenario plan-

ning and market sensing as an approach. With market sensing the emphasis

is on the need for managers to understand the market (Piercy, 1997). The

role of individuals who co-ordinate marketing planning is to develop a

process whereby managers can gain a more in-depth understanding of

the fundamental dynamic forces in their industry.

The emphasis with market sensing is similar to scenario planning and is to

establish the impact on the organisation of critical events that may take place

in the environment and decide upon the probability of that event occurring.

Whichever approach is taken to developing a view of the future one key

feature is that the critical strategic questions facing the organisation have

to be identified.

■ Strategic questions

There have been a range of studies by psychologists that show that in

judgmental situations predictive ability does not improve as the amount

of information increases (Alpert and Raiffa, 1982). The main effect of add-

itional information is to lead to an overconfidence in the judgements

made. In fact the studies show that the optimal amount of information

reaches a plateau reasonably early in the process (Makridakis and

Wheelwright, 1989). Once past this point additional information only

increases the confidence of those involved in the judgement but does

nothing further to enhance the quality of the forecast. Thus increasing

124 Strategic Marketing: Planning and Control

Illustrative Example 6.2 (Continued)

Scenario title: The Fortress Society
This is a society marked out by anxiety. Individuals with employment find work is an unre-
lenting treadmill. Those without employment are marginalized and have no relevant role in
society. The price of a brand becomes the major factor in consumer choice as lifestyle brands
become the domain of a shrinking social elite.

Scenario title: The Virtual Village
Here personal identification is tied to a sense of community. Consumers work only in order to
live rather than work for its own sake. Virtual as well as real markets are vehicles in which to
trade skills. Successful brands in this environment have to earn the trust of stakeholders by
portraying a commitment to community values.
This is one example of scenario planning allowing organizations to explore visions of the
possible consumer environments that might emerge in the future.