Japan faces problems in the French market. It considers how the
company initially failed to make any allowance for cultural differ-
ences in the internal, recruitment and customer markets and ques-
tions the extent to which service delivery systems are culturally
specific.
Broad marketing and strategic issues:
● internationalization of service businesses
● the extent to which service delivery systems are culturally specific
● minimizing risk and failure in cross-border service opportunities
● the importance of researching international markets
● managing poor financial performance
● understanding the difficulties of managing across national and cultural
boundaries.
Relationship marketing issues:
● managing internal markets in an unfamiliar cultural setting
● managing recruitment markets in an unfamiliar cultural setting
● the role that ‘in-house universities’ play in ensuring service quality
● managing customer markets in an unfamiliar cultural setting
● failure to develop a relationship marketing approach.
With the exception of the supplier market, this case illustrates many
of the issues involved in developing a relationship marketing strat-
egy. In addition to the internal, recruitment and customer markets,
it also considers the need to develop appropriate influencer and
referral marketing strategies, particularly when marketing a service
concept across national and cultural boundaries.
Case 5.3: Nordstrom Inc.
This case was prepared by Richard Pascale, who is a consultant, aca-
demic and author. He is on the faculty at Stanford School of
Business, Stanford University.
Abstract
Nordstrom stores are fashion speciality stores which specialize in
apparel, cosmetics and jewellery. Despite being a late entrant in
The recruitment and internal market domains 331