In today's competitive world where customer is king, banks have realized the potential of marketing and are recruiting marketing professionals to cater to their marketing needs. But the question arisesare the banks really prepared to go for marketing or is it just a window dressing? This article provides some insights into the question.

In any organization, marketing plays an important role. It is in different forms during the different stages of the life cycle of any organization. It develops from a generic function to a specialized function. Right from the start of the organization, when it is a small business enterprise it doesn't possess separate marketing department. All the marketing activities are being undertaken by managers, sales persons, dealers, etc. When the organization grows, it gradually starts differentiating between marketing and sales and therefore acquires marketing hand to support its marketing function. After the induction of the marketing hand, the organization starts differentiating between marketing and sales. Now sales function is fully occupied in its selling function and marketing function provides it with necessary support in the form of customers' preferences, needs and marketing intelligence inputs. With the growth of organization, marketing and sales departments evolve into separate functional units often competing for organization resources.

Marketing is considered as an important function in today's competitive world. It has been defined as an integral and indispensable part of an organization. The marketing dynamics are changing so fast that the organizations are finding hard to cope up with the challenges arising in the market. Marketing is acting not only as diagnostic tool but also as a remedy to their problems.

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