英格兰coursework指导：4P营销理论与关系营销理论探讨

1.0 Introduction 引言

营销策略作为一种重要的战略，旨在提高企业利用营销资源的效率，最大限度地提高企业资源的利用效率。市场营销在企业管理中具有突出的战略地位，与产品战略相结合，被称为企业的基本管理战略，对保证企业整体战略的实施和成功发挥着关键作用。目前，营销策略主要有两种类型，一种是以产品为中心的营销策略，如4P的营销理论（McCarthy，1960），另一种是以消费者为中心的关系营销策略（Tapp，2005）。在当前的市场条件下，什么样的营销策略更合适是当代企业管理者需要考虑的重要问题之一。本文首先回顾了4P营销理论和关系营销理论的相关文献。然后以玛莎百货公司为研究对象，对其营销策略的成功进行了实证研究。最后，对现代企业如何应对营销管理提出了建议。

Marketing strategy as an important strategy which aims at improving the efficiency of an enterprise’s making use of marketing resources to maximize the efficiency of using corporate resources. Marketing takes an outstanding strategic position in enterprise management, which makes it together along with product strategy and be known as the basic management strategy of an enterprise, it plays a key role in ensuring the implementation and success of the overall enterprise strategy. Currently there are mainly two types of marketing strategy, one is product-centric marketing strategy, such as the marketing theory of 4P (McCarthy, 1960), the other is consumer-centric relationship marketing strategy (Tapp, 2005). In current market conditions, what type of marketing strategy is more appropriate is one of important issues that contemporary enterprise managers need to consider. This essay first of all reviews literatures on the marketing theory of 4P and relationship marketing theory. Then it takes Marks＆Spencer as the object of a case study to investigate the success of its marketing strategy. Finally, it brings forward recommendations on how modern enterprises deal with marketing management.

2.0 Literature review文献综述

2.1 The marketing theory of 4P4P营销理论

4P营销理论诞生于20世纪中叶，在这一时期，世界主要资本主义国家的经济逐渐从第二次世界大战的冲击中复苏，进入了长达20年快速发展的“黄金时期”，消费者对各种商品的需求量急剧增加。在此期间，消费者需求强劲单一，形成了典型卖方市场的竞争环境。

The marketing theory of 4P was born in the mid-20th century, during this period, economy of the major capitalist countries in the world has gradually recovered from the strike of World War II and entered a "golden period" of up to 20 years of rapid development, there was a sharp increase in consumers’ demand for various commodities. During this period, consumer demand was strong and single, forming the competitive environment of a typical seller's market. In this market environment, enterprises mainly considered how to introduce their products to market at the least cost (Huang, 2015; Abdullah, Putit and Teo, 2014). Aiming at the characteristics of the special market conditions at that time and the practical needs of enterprises to reduce costs and improve marketing performance, Jerome McCarthy proposed the famous marketing theory of 4P, namely, product, price, place and promotion. Jerome McCarthy believes that in marketing process, companies should focus on these four aspects (McCarthy, 1960). Firstly, products produced should have a unique selling point. Secondly, enterprises should depend on product market positioning to develop targeted pricing strategies. Thirdly, they should pay attention to cultivating and improving sales network to establish a link between businesses and consumers. Finally, companies should make use of discounting, providing free gift and other promotional acts to stimulate consumers’ purchase to achieve sales growth (McCarthy, 1960). The marketing theory of 4P proposed is a very valuable decision-making idea for enterprises on how to develop marketing strategies in the market conditions of a shortage, so that under complicated market conditions, decision makers of enterprises can quickly and efficiently find the decisive factors affecting their marketing efficiency to develop targeted marketing mix strategy, so even to this day, although the market environment has changed dramatically, companies can not completely ignore the value of the marketing theory of 4P. However, as the market environment has transformed from a shortage economy to a surplus economy, limitations of the marketing theory of 4P have been more and more revealed, the importance of the theory has gradually been replaced by other marketing theories.

2.2 Relationship marketing theory

Entering the late 1990s, since the efficiency of social material production has been greatly improved, social wealth and products were greatly enriched, consumers were faced with more diverse choice, enterprises faced unprecedented fierce competition. Customer demand became more diverse and personalized, in order to continue to meet the individual needs of consumers, enterprises on the one hand constantly adjusted product structure, improved processes, updated equipment, so that enterprises’ products production and marketing costs rose constantly, profit margins have been drastically reduced. On the other hand, the market competition was fierce, consumers faced many choices, consumer loyalty for products declined (Huang, 2015; Abdullah, Putit and Teo, 2014). In this context, to resolve conflicts between individualized demand of consumers and costs of enterprises to maintain, continuously improve customer loyalty, people began to realize the importance of constructing the relationship between consumers and enterprises to expect to meet consumer demand, while maximizing corporate interests. To this end, Tapp (2005) proposed relationship marketing theory, in relationship marketing theory, he defines marketing activities as the interaction process occurring between an enterprise and consumers, suppliers, distributors, competitors, government agencies and other public, the core is to establish and develop good relations with these public. Traditional marketing is concerned about how to achieve trading and attract new customers; relationship marketing focuses on how to maintain friendly relations with our customers to get loyal customers. Marketing target of traditional marketing is only customers, marketing objects of relationship marketing include customers, suppliers, employees, distributors and other multiple markets related to corporate interests (Bilgihan and Bujisic, 2015; Arslanagic-Kalajdzic and Zabkar, 2015).

2.3 Critical analysis

The marketing theory of 4P is product-centric marketing theory, and relationship marketing theory is consumer-centric marketing theory, in the market conditions of surplus economy, relationship marketing theory is clearly more helpful to help enterprises to improve customer loyalty than the marketing theory of 4P, however, it is worth noting that relationship marketing theory faces some difficulties in the specific implementation. For example, relationship marketing emphasizes that enterprises should maintain a good relationship with a wide range of aspects such as consumers, employees, suppliers, government, etc., but in reality, there will be a conflict between all parties about interests, how to simultaneously coordinate the conflict of interests of all parties to maintain good relations with all parties is a considerable challenge for enterprises (Huang, 2015). There is another example: the establishment of a relationship depends on the willingness of both sides, with changes in market environment, what consumers, employees, suppliers demand will change, their willingness of establishing relationship with enterprises will change accordingly, thus how to build long-term stable relationship with them is a challenge for corporate management (Abdullah, Putit and Teo, 2014). 

3.0 Case study

Marks & Spencer is the UK's largest and most profitable transnational retail group, its customers are mainly people of working class, its purpose is determined as “providing target customers with high-quality goods that they can afford”. Thus Marks & Spencer set up their own design team, in close coordination with suppliers, together with them to design or re-design a variety of products, in order to ensure to provide customers with high quality goods (Whitelegge, 2008).

Marks & Spencer is based on the price that their consumers can accept to determine the production costs. To this end, it put a lot of money into technology design and development of goods, through economies of scale to reduce production costs, while continuing to pursue administrative reform to improve administrative efficiency in order to reduce operating costs of the entire enterprise (Whitelegge, 2008).

In terms of the relationship with suppliers, Marks & Spencer provides them help as much as possible to help them to improve product quality, when the quality of goods is improved and sales increases, Marks & Spencer and its suppliers can share economic benefits with the suppliers, which makes their partnership further close. It has been more than 100 years when Marks & Spencer first established partnership with its first suppliers, there are more than 60 supplies who have partnership with Marks & Spencer for over 50 years, and there are more than 100 suppliers with more than 30 years of partnership with Marks & Spencer (Colgate and Alexander, 1998). #p#分页标题#e#

Considering the relationship with its internal staff, Marks & Spencer has always taken the staff as the most important asset, and it also believes that these assets are critical factors for it in successfully overwhelming its competitors, therefore, it takes establishing mutual trust between staff, inspiring staff enthusiasm and potential as an important task in management. In personnel management, Marks & Spencer not only provides staff of different classes comprehensive and rigorous organized training, but also provide equal fringe benefits for each employee, and it really care for each employee. Such meticulous care for staff will inevitably bring staff’s more interest and enthusiasm for work, so that Marks & Spencer can achieve a comprehensive and thorough quality assurance system, which is the foundation for Marks & Spencer to establish long-term stable relationship of trust with customers (Colgate and Alexander, 1998; Whitelegge, 2008).

4.0 Discussion

Relationship marketing emphasizes that enterprises should maintain a good relationship with customers, suppliers, employees and other aspects, and the relationship is the basis for enterprises to maintain long-term competitiveness, in some ways, relationship marketing is a ecosystem developed by enterprises in order to improve their competitiveness. It is known that the most important feature of the natural ecosystem is a win-win symbiosis, in terms of relationship marketing research, the ecosystem also has this characteristic, that is, each member of this ecosystem should profit in relationship marketing and each of the members of the ecosystem are important, and the relationship between a member and the enterprise should contribute to rather than undermine the relationship between other members and the enterprise (Huang, 2015).

The case of Marks & Spencer is a success case of relationship marketing, it has successfully maintained a long-term and stable relationships with customers, suppliers and employees, and the relationship marketing allows the company, the suppliers, and the employees to have gained economic benefits, while the good relationship established between Marks & Spencer and one of them also plays a good role in promoting the establishment a good relationship with the other. For example, it establishes a good relationship with its employees, which helps to improve work efficiency and the quality of service, which will help the enterprise to have a good cooperation with the suppliers, and it will also contribute to consumers’ access to quality products and services. Therefore, Marks & Spencer is through relationship marketing to build a healthy sustainable ecosystem, which plays a very important role in maintaining its customer loyalty for its long-term competitiveness.

Considering from the case of Marks & Spencer, to build a healthy sustainable ecological environment mainly needs enterprises to take measures of the following two aspects. First, a company should take other members, such as its suppliers, employees as a fate community, as long as they work together, they are able to provide better products and services that consumers really need, then the enterprise and the suppliers, the employees can share the economic interests brought by product sales (Huang, 2015). Second, in the ecosystem, the relationship between the parties is dynamic and instable, a company needs to adopt appropriate measures to stabilize its relations with the parties. For example, consumer demand is changing, companies need to constantly discover what consumers need and meet these needs; suppliers will encounter various difficulties in upgrading of products and processes, which needs help from the enterprise; employees will have more requirements in terms of pay, development planning, job promotion and other aspects, which requires the company to take reasonable measures to meet their requirements (Abdullah, Putit and Teo, 2014).

5.0 Conclusion

The marketing theory of 4P is product-centric marketing theory, relationship marketing theory is consumer-centric marketing theory, in the market conditions of a surplus economy, relationship marketing theory is clearly more helpful than the marketing theory of 4P for enterprises to improve customer loyalty. However, it is noted that in the specific implementation of relationship marketing theory, it should pay attention to the following two aspects. First, enterprises should attach importance to share benefits with consumers, employees, suppliers, consider them as community of destiny, in order to maintain good relationship with customers, employees, suppliers and other related aspects. Second, the relationship between an enterprise and the various relevant parties is dynamically and unstable, it requires the company to take timely, targeted measures to stabilize its relationship with the parties.

References

Abdullah, M. F., Putit, L. and Teo, C. B. C. (2014). Impact of relationship marketing tactics (RMT's) & relationship quality on customer loyalty: a study within the Malaysian mobile telecommunication industry. Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences, 130(15), 371-378. 

Arslanagic-Kalajdzic, M. and Zabkar, V. (2015). The external effect of marketing accountability in business relationships: Exploring the role of customer perceived value. Industrial Marketing Management, 46, 83-97. 

Bilgihan, A, and Bujisic, M. (2015). The effect of website features in online relationship marketing: a case of online hotel booking. Electronic Commerce Research and Applications, 14(4), 222-232. 

Colgate, M. and Alexander, N. (1998). Banks, retailers and their customers: a relationship marketing perspective. International Journal of Bank Marketing, 16(4), 144 – 152. 

Huang, M. H. (2015). The influence of relationship marketing investments on customer gratitude in retailing. Journal of Business Research, 68(6),1318-1323.

McCarthy, J. E. (1960). Basic marketing. A Managerial Approach. Homewood, IL: Richard D. 

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Tapp, A. (2005). Principles of direct and database marketing. Prentice Hall. 

Whitelegge, M. (2008). Pitney Bowes Mapinfo is very much a trusted partner of Marks & Spencer. Available from http://news.pb.com/pitney-bowes-case-studies/marks-spencer-case-study.download (Accessed on April 23, 2016)