A
firm's marketing team work long and hard at formulating
a great new writing strategy, and write what seems
to be the perfect marketing plan. Considerable sums
of money are spent on gathering all the right information,
and the planning team considers every eventuality.
The reactions of competitors, the responses of customers
and the consequence within the distribution channel
are all evaluated, and taken into consideration. Yet,
when the plan is put into action, the hoped-for results
are not achieved. The team goes back to the drawing
board, blaming the failure on their own poor formulation
of the marketing strategy, and on a poorly conceived
marketing plan, swears to work harder and smarter
the next time.
Many
organizations and marketing management teams today,
spend an inordinate amount of time and effort on the
formulation of marketing strategy and the writing
of marketing plans, which often ensures excellent
strategy. Yet, the downfall occurs when this strategy
is poorly implemented. In simple terms, implementation
is the "doing" of marketing strategy, putting
into action carefully considered creative marketing
thinking.
On
one dimension, the grid in Figure 1 considers strategy
formulation - which can range from poor to adequate.
On the other dimension, the grid considers strategy
implementation, which again can range from poor to
adequate. Managers should use the grid to think about
the formulation of their own marketing strategies,
and their implementation. When a strategy is well
formulated, and well implemented, then it is likely
that success will follow. Similarly, when a strategy
is poorly formulated, and also poorly implemented,
then, not surprisingly, it generally results in failure.
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