Services Marketing [antikvár]

PREFACE It's now seven years since publication of the first edition of Services Marketing. Interest in improving the management of service businesses (and not-for-profit services) continues to accelerate. As a result, there's a larger store of knowledge available on service management, not only in marketing but also in functions that necessarily interact with marketing, such as human resources and operations. Service industries continue to face dramatic changes in their environment, ranging from developments in computerization and telecommunications to the emergence of a global marketplace. Perhaps the most significant trend—representing both a threat and an opportunity—is the increasingly competitive nature of the marketplace. This development requires increased emphasis on marketing for services as diverse as airlines and accounting, hotels and hospitals, and repairs and retail banking. The theme of this book is that service organizations differ in many important respects from manufacturing businesses, requiring a distinctive approach to planning and implementing marketing strategy. By this, I don't mean to imply that services marketing is uniquely different from goods marketing. If that were true, it would undercut the whole notion of marketing as a coherent management function. Rather, I stress the importance of understanding service organizations on their own terms and then tailoring marketing goals and strategies accordingly. In the process, it's becoming increasingly clear that we can enrich our understanding of the marketing discipline in general. The original book was based upon my