Market orientation is a method used to recognize the needs of customers and strive to solve them in order to meet the customers desires (Grinstein 2008). The concept involves identification of negative organizational factors that may cause a business to collapse thereafter they take the necessary precautions to prevent the downfall of the firm by informing each member of the company about the changes which may occur in the entire running of business (companies’ culture) and thus they are advised(employees) to adhere to the changes failure unto which they are displacement process is done to replace them with new employees who are ready to work through embracing the changes (Liao, Chang, Wu and Katruchis 2011).
When an organization achieves its objectives by improving its performance, it offers its regards to its employees through rewarding them and as a result, the introduced changes are implemented to influence the proper running the business.
Relationship between market orientations and other business orientations
Business orientations are methods or tactics that organizations put in place to enhance the success of the business (Drummond and Ensor 2005). As an organization, they have a set of objectives that becomes their center of focus to ensure they achieve them and so run their business strategically especially concentrating on wining against their competitors by satisfying the needs of their customers effectively. These strategies include; marketing orientation, production orientations, sales orientations and product orientations.
In this aspect, a review on how marketing orientations relates to the other three business orientations mentioned above is critically analyzed. Just the way marketing orientation seeks to enhance the success of the business by identifying what the customer needs and satisfy those needs, so does the other orientations (Raju, Lonial and Crum 2001). To begin with product orientations, its desire is to improve the quality and quantity of products and it achieves this by improving the quality of the existing products into a new better product in accordance to the demand in the market thus strengthening the relationship between the consumers.
Another type of business orientation is production orientation which focuses on what is to be manufactured, how, when and why. Production orientation identifies the customer’s needs with the help of marketing orientation strategy, after which it the technique of saving money in the process of producing these goods without affecting their quality (Altuntas 2010).
Therefore, one of the skills it uses is by producing same products by use of cheaper raw materials which helps the company to be competitive through producing goods which are similar to their competitors but at a cheaper price. Sales orientation as another type of business orientations that focus on generating money by transacting goods, through which they advertise their goods making them known to the customers and thus try to win the customers against their competitors (van Raaij and Stoelhorst 2008). Production orientation is different from other types of business orientation because it majorly focuses on making the company’s products known and purchased by customers but not interested in in satisfying customer’s needs.
In conclusion, marketing orientation alongside other orientation works hand in hand to enhance the success of a business as one strategy leads to the success of the other. Marketing orientation leads to the product orientation which in return brings about production orientation and thus sales orientation strategy and this implies that marketing orientation is strongest compared to other strategies as it plays the key role in the success of an organization (Prifti and Alimehmeti 2017). Therefore, the three types of business orientations without marketing orientation are null and void, as they cannot operate on their own.
Importance of marketing orientation to the success of an organization
Marketing orientations plays a big role in enhancing the success of an organisation. By officials understanding the customers’ needs and finding a way to meet them, they create a close relationship between customers and the business by responding to what consumers expect from the producers (Gheysari, Rasli, Roghanian and Norhalim 2012).
As a result, understanding the objectives of the business guides the company in collecting important information regarding the demand of goods in the market and supplying them to the customers thus improving the product financially. Additionally, understanding what is expected in the market also enables the manufacturers or organisations to produce goods on time as they are able to predict the consumption period and thus need for publication of manufacture and expiry dates of the products (Laukkanen, Tuominen, Reijonen, Hirvonen 2016).
On the other hand, the demand of quality and quantity goods by customers enables the organisations to adjust on their products in order to meet these needs and this hinders an organisation from incurring loss as the organisations adjusts the prices of goods depending on the demand in the markets, leading into high consumption and thus enhancing large scale production.Therefore, marketing orientation is essential in the success of a business by relating customers to organisations just as Kurtz et al (2009) who states that,” obtaining market information and delivering the right producer services to the customers are two of the most essential functions of marketing that leads to success if the product or service.
Another importance of marketing orientation is making the company known within and beyond its territory, this is when consumers needs are satisfied, consuming the products increases are at a high rate, this attracts new customers who praises a company’s service (Altuntas and Donmez 2010). Attracting new customers puts a company in a position of standing ahead of their competitors influencing long-term profitability because the organisation puts in place the necessary measures, retaining its customers and attracting new buyers
Understanding the demand of products in the market, alerts the organisation on the measures to put in place in terms of producing the goods without incurring loss but buy saving the money (Avci and Okumu 2011), bringing about the success of the organisation as the organisation engages in producing the required goods at a cheaper price and thus applying the production strategies. Without marketing orientation, a company is unable to run effectively even if it applies other types of business orientations. In fact, the other three strategies can’t operate on their own as they depend on marketing orientation. And therefore, marketing orientation plays the overall duty of enhancing the success of an organisation.
Key aspects of different business orientations
For a business to achieve its objectives, it has to take the first and key step of introducing its company to the people it will interact with who include the customers, suppliers, employees and the community at large (Berkowitz 2010). This enables them to know its background, brand names and the products it produces and thus, different orientations are carried out to achieve this noting that each orientation plays its own role. They include: Company orientation, department orientation, industry orientation and human resource orientation as discussed below.
Company orientation
It is a kind of business orientation in which different measures are put in place by a new company which are purposed to make them known to their new employees and other important figures around (Wong and Tong 2012). Employees are taught on what is expected by the company by advertising their name and product brands not forgetting their history, this helps it in the attaining of their goals and objectives.
Industry orientation.
New employers and other people outside the company acquire information about the industry which includes the name of the industry, the extent to which it operates geographically and their competitors at large (Hooley, Piercy and Nicoulaud 2012). The new employers learn more how their employer operates and the community understands the role of the industry and how it will improve the economy of that place at large.
Human resource orientation.
Under this category, new employees understand how useful the company’s policies are I matters of retirement, health issues, rules and regulations set in terms of requesting vacation time among others.
Department orientation.
Customers know the workers of the company and how they will interact with them as the new employees meets their co-workers in the department and identifies their role in the company, what to do and how they interact within the company (Cadogan 2012). Learning different positions of their fellow workers in the business enables them to interact well with them in their efforts of achieving the company’s objectives.
Supremacy of marketing orientation
As discussed earlier, marketing orientation plays the key role in the success of the organisation as compared to other business orientations because it provides important knowledge on customers’ needs which enables a company to produce suitable products to satisfy their customer’s needs, thus achievement of objectives and through this the company stays ahead of its competitors because they retain these customers for longer times. It has more power in this position because it impossible for other business orientations to accomplish their mission without its support. For instance,
Production orientation cannot succeed without marketing orientation because it can’t manufacture good anyhow unless it is aware of the market demand which then enables it the company to produce items to fill that gap (Theodosiou, Kehagias and Katsikea 2012). It is incomplete without the powerful business orientation (marketing orientation) since a company can’t improve its products without understanding what the customers need and if they are satisfied with what they produce, before applying this strategy, the company usually seeks information on how their goods are being consumed, are they meeting the needs of customers or not? And if not it’s the company then applies production strategy to meet the market demand, and all this is made possible marketing orientation.
Last but not least, the supremacy of marketing orientation is also seen in the sales orientation, a business can’t market their products without understanding the demand in the market (Varadarajan 2017). For instance, a company can’t market items like cotton for instance when people need sugar thus marketing orientation still comes in for this method of business orientation to be useful. Therefore, marketing orientation is superior in the achievement of business objectives as it identifies the needs of customers and looks for ways of satisfying these needs and here is where other business orientations comes in as they depend on marketing orientation. (Dibb and Stern 2000).
Conclusion
In summary, marketing orientation is a crucial matter in the success of a business although at some point an organisation fails to embrace it thus undermining its efforts in improving the busssiness.in some occasions, implementation of marketing orientation is hindered due to emerge of different issues , for instance, poor management of the organisation where officials of the company fail to perform their duties effectively in terms of delegation of duties and responsibilities to workers by using bad styles of leadership that denies employers freedom in the participation of decision making and a resulting into poor performance due to lack of motivation and hostile environment that makes the workers uncomfortable..
Furthermore, poor communication is another factor that underrates the power of marketing orientation because for a company to expand, there should be proper communication between the leaders and employers and among the employers themselves which helps in passing out of important information necessary for the prosper of a business and thus enhancing team work. Leaders should also get themselves exposed to changes in the market and be ready to embrace them by listening to advice within and outside the company. Lack of creativity is another problem that hinders the progress of a business, even after orienting a business, creativity is also needed to help a company to remain competitive.
Understanding what customers need is not enough for a business to be successful, one has to come up with ideas that makes distinguishes it from its competitors by satisfying people’s needs in an attractive style different from other business. Lastly, since marketing orientation focusses on long term profit by discovering needs of their customers and satisfying them leading to retaining of customers, a business whose focus is on short term profit due to poor planning hinders the efforts of market orientation in its efforts to achieve the objectives.
References
Altuntas, G. (2010). Entrepreneurship and strategic management relationship: A strategic model and test on Istanbul Stock Exchange National-100 Index. Unpublished Doctorial Dissertation Istabul University, The Institute of Social Sciences.
Altuntas, G. and Donmez, D. (2010). The relationship between entrepreneurial management and financial performance: Evidence from the hotel industry in Canakkale region. Journal of the School of Business Administration, Instabul University, 40(2):278-303.
Avci, M. and Okumu, M.F. (2011). Strategic orientation and performance of tourism firms. Tourism Management, 32: pp.147-157.
Berkowitz, E. (2010). Essentials of Health Care Marketing. LLC: Joanes and Bartlett.
Cadogan, J. (2012). International marketing, strategic orientations and business success. International Marketing Review, 29(4), pp.340-348.
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Hooley, G., Piercy, N., and Nicoulaud, B., (2012). Marketing Strategy and Competitive Positioning, 5th Ed. FT Prentice Hall p.8.
Laukkanen, T., Tuominen, S., Reijonen, H. Hirvonen, S. (2016). Does market orientation pay off without brand orientation? A study of small business entrepreneurs. Journal of marketing management 32(7-8): pp673-674.
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Prifti, R. and Alimehmeti, G. (2017). Market orientation, innovation, and firm performance—an analysis of Albanian firms. Journal of Innovation and Entrepreneurship, 6:8.
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