How to handle marketing plannig problems

• Top mgmt must be committed to planning and be seen by middle mgmt to give it total support. Top mgmt should be seen insisting on implementation of what has been planned. When a marketing plan is discarded without giving convincing reasons, employees become skeptical towaeds the whole planning process. Planning should be given ongoing support, and not be treated as a short term fad.
• How the marketing planning process is managed should be consistent with the culture of the organization.
• The reward system should reward the achievement of longer term objectives rather than focus exclusively on short term results.
• Depolitisizing outcomes: Less emphasis should be placed on rewarding managers associated with build strategies. Recognition of the skills involved in defending market share and harvesting products should be made. The company should recognize that it takes more skills and perseverance to defend a market share in a highly competitive, mature market than to grow a business in a new product category.
• plan should be clearly communicated to those charged with implementation. It is useful when people who are ultimately responsible for implementing the plan are also involved in its formulation. Employees are more eager to implement a plan that they themselves formulated.
• Trainning: Marketing personnel should be trained in necessary marketing knowledge and skills to perform the planning job. Ideallythe mgmt should attend the same training course so that they each share a common understanding of concepts and tools involved and can communicate the same terminology.

Problems in making marketing planning works

• Political : Marketing planning is a resource allocation process. The outcome of this process is an allocation of more funds to some products and departments, the same or less to others. Since power bases, career opportunities and salaries are often tied to whether an area is fast or slow growing, managers view  planning as a political process.
• Opportunities cost : Busy managers view planning as a time wasting ritual which conflicts with the need to deal with day to day business and problems.
• Reward systems : Reward systems are geared to short term. Managers may thus overweigh short term issues and underweigh madium term and long term concerns, if there is a conflict of time.
• Information : There may be lack of data of market share, size and growth rates of markets or they may be willfully withheld by vested interests.
• Culture : Business may be planned by making incremental decisions. Planning  may challenge the status quo and be seen as a threat.
• Personal clashes
• Lack of knowledge and skills

Rewards of marketing planning

·         Consistency : by reference to a common marketing plan, decisions by the same manager over time, and by different managers should be more consistent and actions better coordinate.

·         Encourages monitoring of change : step away from day to day problems and review the impact of change on business from a strategic perspective.

·         Encourage organizations adaptation : firm adapts to match its environment. Marketing planning promotes the necessity to accept the inevitability of change.

·         Stimulates achievement : it motivates people to set new objectives. It encourages people to ask, “what can we achieve, given our capabilities?”

·         Resource allocation : Build, harvest and divest objectives decides resource allocation.

·         Competitive advantage : Planning promotes search for sources of competitive advantage.

But not all companies formulate and implement their plans in this manner. The style of planning must match business culture. Incremental planning is more problem focused as the process begins by realization of a problem and continues with an attempt to identify a solution. As solutions to problems from form, so strategy emerges. Individual decisions should be integrated to align with the strategy, which is not being done. Strategy is a loosely linked group of decisions that are handled individually. Its effect is to attune the business to its environment through its problem solving nature.    

Marketing Audit

Marketing audit is a systematic examination of a business's marketing environment, objectives, strategies and activities with a view to identifying key strategic issues, problems areas and opportunities.

• Where is the company now?
• How did the company get here?
• Where is the company heading?

Answers to these questions depend upon analysis of internal and external environment of a business.
The market consists of statistical analysis of the market size, growth areas, and trends.Customer analysis includes who the customers are, what choice criteria they use, and how they rate competitive offerings and market segmentation basis. Distribution analysis covers significant movements in power bases between the manufacturer and the intermediaries, channel attractiveness studies, and identification of physical distribution methods.
Competitor analysis examines the nature of actual and potential competitors and their objectives and strategies. Profitability analysis examines industry profitability and comparative performance of competitors. Entry barrier analysis identifies the key financial and non-financial barriers that industry from competitor attack.
In the internal audit the operating results of the company from the basis of assessment through analysis of sales, market share, profit margin and costs. Strategic issues analysis examines the suitability of marketing objectives and segmentation bases in the light of changes in the marketplace.
Marketing systems are audited for effectiveness. The marketing audit should be an ongoing activity, not a desperate attempt to turn around an ailing business.

marketing planning concept

The role of the marketing plan is to ensure that the marketing mix for the product matches changing customer needs, as well as to seek opportunities to use the company's strenghts to market other products in new markets.
Allocation of resources needs to be done for each product.
The sarting point is asking the basic question' where is the company now'. This involves a factual statement and a value judgement as to the degree of success achieved against expectation. The answer will depend upon 'facts' as perceived by the executives of the company.
The second question 'how did the company get here' , focuses on an analysis of significant events that had a bearing on the achievement of the company and its shortcomings.
The next question, 'where is the company heading' , focuese on the future, given that the company makes no significant changes in its actions. If the company proceeds as it had done in the past, what are the likely outcomes?
But the next question, ' where would the company like to be' , allows the company to compare its prediction of its future with its aspirations. It is a key planning question. If its aspirations match its predictions based on current behaviour, it can proceed as before. But its assessment may be that current actions are insuffcient to achieve where it would like to be. So it needs to ask, 'how does the company get there?' The company identifies options that make sense in the light of its aspirations. Answering the question, 'how does the company get there' provides the company with its strategy. Finally after putting into practice its new actions it periodically checks out its position by asking, ' Is the company on course?' . If it is, then the plan remains unchanged, if not, the company modifies its plans.