Marketing Management [antikvár]

PREFACE_ When the first edition of Marketing Management was written in 1967, marketing was a far simpler subject. Consumer marketing largely operated on mass marketing principles, and business marketing primarily concerned itself with how to build the best sales force. The retail landscape was populated with major department stores, regional supermarket food chains, and a very large number of mom-and-pop stores. Most marketing thinking focused on making the sale. In those days, marketers faced a number of tough decisions. They had to determine product features and quality, establish accompanying services, set the price, determine the distribution channels, decide how much to spend on marketing, and decide how to divide their resources among advertising, sales force, and other promotion tools. Today's marketers, of course, face the same tough decisions. But today's marketplace is enormously more complex. Domestic markets, at one time safe from foreign invaders, are now the happy hunting grounds of giant global corporations as well as global niche specialists. Major strides in technology have considerably shortened time and distance: New products are launched at an astonishing pace and are available worldwide in a short time. Communications media are proliferating. New distribution channels and formats keep appearing. Competitors are everywhere—and hungry. In the midst of these changes, busy consumers are changing their ways. To save time, they are shopping with catalogs, the telephone, and the computer. Today consumers can search the Internet to find the best price for a car. They can handle most of their banking needs over the phone or by computer. They can buy insurance and carry out financial transactions without working with an agent or broker. Consumers don't even need to visit the supermarket: Using Peapod, Streamline, or Netgrocer, they can place orders over the Internet and have the groceries delivered to their homes. Nor do they need to buy a newspaper to get their news; in fact, they can get a customized version of the Wall Street journal every morning. The changes for business buyers are also profound. Using the Internet, purchasing agents can search for the best vendors and values. General Electric has created the Trading Process Network (TPN) where GE, along with other subscribers to GE's service, can request quotes, negotiate terms, and place orders with global suppliers. Purchasing agents can go on-line to www.Dell.com and order specific computers with customized features. These new shopping capabilities signify a brand new world of proliferating opportunities and proliferating threats. Silicon Valley is only one symbol of a Brave New World characterized by digitalization, robotization, telecommuting, artificial intelligence, virtual reality, and other technological advances. At the same time, what is a magnificent opportunity for millions of consumers and businesses is a major and sometimes deadly threat to others. Banks will have to close branches; travel agencies and brokerage firms will need to reduce staffs; automobile manufacturers will reduce the number of auto dealerships; and many bookstores, music stores, and video stores will close their doors. Technological advances are a double-edged sword: They create opportunities and they destroy opportunities.