Marketing Plans [antikvár]

Preface and acknowledgements This is the Fourth Edition of a book which, since its launch in 1984, has helped and encouraged hundreds of thousands of practising managers with the difficult task of marketing planning. Many of them have been kind enough to write to me and thank me for the book's practical, no-nonsense style and approach to the subject. This has encouraged me to update the book to incorporate the findings of my latest research and experience in this difficult domain of marketing. This support also encouraged me to strengthen the book considerably by the addition of a chapter which incorporates a step-by-step, 'this is how you do it' approach to the preparation of marketing plans. The result is a book which takes the reader painstakingly through the process of marketing planning, while also providing a detailed means of implementing all the concepts and methodologies outlined. I have done this because, in working with companies ranging from world leaders in their fields to small domestic companies, there continues to be much confusion between the process and methods of marketing planning and the actual outputs of this process, i.e. the strategic marketing plan and the tactical marketing plan. 1 hope you will find this addition to the book of considerable value. I have also expanded the book to incorporate much of the latest thinking in the domain of marketing, without trying to make it a detailed, speciaUst book on any particular aspect of marketing. For example, while there are sections on database marketing, competitive strategies and marketing research, readers would be well advised to turn to specialist books in these subjects for detailed methodologies. The purpose of this book is quite simply to explain and demonstrate how to prepare and use a marketing plan. It is equally relevant for consumer, service and industrial goods companies, since the process is universal, although I have now included in the CIM series specialist books on marketing planning for retailers and marketing planning for service businesses. It is based on my research into the marketing planning practices of industrial, service and retail companies, which has revealed marketing plarming as an area of major weakness. Almost without exception, companies that thought they were planning were in fact only forecasting and budgeting, and suffered grave operational difficulties as a result. The problem, as companies face up to the opportunities and challenges of the