Marketing is a set of techniques designed to support the functions of the Business, especially Sales. Marketing is not a basic or terminal objective for the interests of the Business.
Summary
The understanding of Marketing should not have preeminence over that which is indispensable in the case of Sales. Marketing does not direct the Sales effort, Strategy does.
This lack of order in the subordination of concepts is the product of the exaggerated exercise of "syncretism" by the Administration. Through it, the Administration uses whatever knowledge is useful for the practice of its tasks… and Marketing is there: full, flexible and full of a permanently renewed vigor. Through Marketing, the Administration tries to perfect an epistemological desire regarding the external variables that affect organizational development. However, this is a task that is not reserved for Marketing, it is a task that corresponds to Strategy.
The Strategy is the natural element of governance of the Business and its basic functions: sales and production. The application of these functions in the market is what subjects the Business to Competition and Conflict. And the human being has not discovered a more effective method of interacting with the Conflict than Strategy.
Due to its ontological relationship with the Conflict, the Strategy is not a long-term plan or orientation. The Strategy is guidance for immediate action.
Given that in open systems (the case of Business), external variables condition internal development, then Strategy conditions Administration and, of course, Marketing.
Beware of marketing!
Development.
Administration, as a science of government of organizations, clearly supports “syncretism” as a method of epistemological nutrition. The Administration is not a general science that is based on an independent and original knowledge of the things that constitute its object of study and its function. The Administration repeatedly resorts to the knowledge of other sciences to feed itself. For this reason it is said that it has a syncretic character, because it opts for knowledge of different origins and transforms it to explain its purposes, as one who works on an amalgam composed of many elements but with a specific purpose.
The sciences that explain the structural character of the Administration are, essentially, jurisprudence and social psychology. And the sciences that explain its functional character are economics and political science. Among these four sciences the Administration is watering. Between them he nurtures to shape his own state. However, its syncretic essence does not deprive it of resorting to other sciences that are beneficial for the work that must be performed.
This lack of roots gives the Administration a flexibility and a capacity to adapt to circumstances that few sciences have. The message of his sense of mission is almost an apology for practicality, an ode to pragmatism.
But as often happens in many things in life, it is precisely among its main virtue that the Administration also finds its greatest weaknesses. Its flexibility, its adaptability, its inherent pragmatism, repeatedly distance it from the indispensable security that concepts provide.
With increasing vigor (as if generating a response to the growing dynamics of change), Administration is becoming a science entrenched among a set of techniques. You are reaching the precise point where "utilitarianism" replaces thought and wisdom.
That culture of the "tip" and the "clip" that characterizes many aspects of life in today's societies, progressively accustomed to "easy", "immediacy" and the set of "light" concepts, is catching up with the Administration with unusual speed and forcefulness.
The different generations of Administration professionals enter the job market equipped with increasingly numerous and strange techniques. Today, no professional can pride himself as such if he does not interpose general knowledge of some of those various techniques: strategic planning, reengineering, "downsizing", "benchmarking", total quality, crisis management teams, "dashboards", etc., etc. The manager's "cockpit" looks more and more like those of those commercial airliners of the 70s, filled with innumerable and incomprehensible clocks and screens, throughout the width and length of its structure.
And in the shadow of this multiform variety of techniques lie the meager and almost abandoned Concepts. Those who are the true foundation of science. Those who are, ultimately, the only ones who will be able to differentiate science itself from pure art.
Now, the most representative technique of this state of things, the one that largely leads the progressive transition of the Administration towards "utilitarianism", is Marketing.
Marketing has become a "thousand-headed" technique. Many minor techniques emerge from it, they take refuge in it and find sustenance.
This powerful energy of inertia that now exists behind Marketing is even taking it away from the Administration itself.
It is not surprising that many management professionals are convinced that their knowledge of Marketing, great or small, actually qualify their own professional value. Marketing specialists themselves become, many times, the main victims of this kind of cult in which they are involved. Among the popular business culture (because it also exists in the organizational world), the Marketing specialist is almost part of the fantasy world of Harry Potter, rather than a group of government professionals.
In reality the problem does not lie in the techniques themselves, or in the Marketing itself, for this case. The techniques are, of course, absolutely necessary and useful for organizational governance purposes. The problem arises when the techniques lack other foundations that are not strictly their own.
When the techniques are unaware of the structures of which they are part and become self-sufficient, they move from practical to “utilitarianism”.
The techniques are only justified when they emerge as a functional necessity of the Concepts, when they complement and make their gnoseological scope viable. Structured and comprehensive knowledge is among the Concepts, not among the techniques.
Now, how can one determine which knowledge is found among Concepts and which among techniques? How is the claim that Marketing is a technique and not a Management Concept justified?
To answer the question, it is necessary to develop a logical deductive process of the subordination that exists between some concepts and others. This is the way to achieve the genesis of the process of preeminence and scope of one concept in relation to another. For the purposes of the Greater Concept, the lesser can be perfectly conceived as a technique.
Quickly and easily this deductive process can be considered as follows:
- The Administration is a government system whose object of work is the Organization, that is, the basic and orderly social structure of man. The human being is an agent that develops between organizations. There are many types of them, from one end of the continuum where the family appears, to the other end where nations and civilization itself appear. The fundamental environment of man is a world of organizations in which he develops from birth to death (in this sense, it may be interesting to speculate about the likely scope and effects that a hypothetical "Organizational Ecology" could have).
Organizations are different from each other in terms of the purpose they pursue, but all of them, absolutely all, require Administration. For this reason the Administration is the subject and the Organization the object; the Administration the function and the Organization the structure.
Since this structural-functional relationship is not static, the motive that generates its dynamics must be determined. All organizations are formed for the purpose of pursuing a Purpose, all of them develop some activity, one that must also generate a certain benefit. Organizations are not part of a nonsense, they are part of a rational Purpose.
The central Purpose of any Organization is the Business that sustains it and that explains it.
The term Business comes from the Latin word "negotium" which etymologically means "any activity that generates utility, interest or profit for those who practice it". This is the meaning of profit that perfects the Purpose of organizations.
The concept of Business, therefore, is not alien to any type of Organization, since all of them carry out some activity that generates "utility, interest or profit". The Business is therefore a function, it is not a structure, and in this it could well be established a vital difference that many times is not clear.
On the other hand, the Business concept explains a generic benefit and thus also moves away from a frivolous and common interpretation: one that specifically associates it with economic, financial or monetary criteria.
An Organization like the family is supported by a Business in the same way as a company that sells automobiles, because both carry out activities that generate some kind of utility, interest or profit.
Business in organizations is made up of a set of activities that seek to achieve benefits. It is assumed that all the activities that are developed in the Organization tend to improve the Business that sustains it, but among the different activities that are put into practice, some achieve the benefit, the utility or the benefit in a more direct and effective way.
And no function that the Organization implements achieves this more directly than the Production and Sales functions. These are the two functions that really perfect the Business.
And just as all organizations are supported by a Business, all of them produce and sell something, because only from these tasks can the purposes be achieved. From the family, through the church, the commercial company or the State, all organizations produce and sell something, thus perfecting their Business.
Now, at this point there is a subtlety that is still vital. Although all organizations produce and sell something, in reality none of them produce something that cannot be sold later. For this reason, the Sales function reaches preeminence over the production function. And in this way a basic conclusion is generated: the Sales function improves the Business.
Only the Organization that focuses on its Business, or what is the same, in its Sales activities, can achieve appropriate levels of health.
From this point on, another variable enters to explain the organizational dynamics: size, magnitude.
Although every Organization is formed from the functions of the Business, that is, the production and sale of something, there comes a time when these same functions demand other support tasks to optimize their performance. And among these support functions are progressively included all those that typify an average Organization. Among commercial companies, for example, support functions are included between accounting, financial, logistics, purchasing, research and development, human resources, etc., etc.
In fact, all those functions that are not part of the Business are support functions, that is, all except for the Sales and production functions.
Many times, these support functions are classified as bureaucratic or belonging to the Bureaucracy functions. This is a methodological exercise that essentially seeks to differentiate them from the Business functions. Here the term Bureaucracy is used in its positive sense, one that links it to tasks carried out in the "bureau".
According to their magnitude, the organizations are made up of the Business and the Bureaucracy. The latter is clearly subordinate to the former. The Bureaucracy alone does not generate any kind of utility, interest or profit. Only the functions of the Business (essentially Sales), do it.
Many of the major problems faced by business organizations stem from the simple mistake of not understanding the vital differences that exist between these concepts. In many organizations, bureaucratic structures reach such a magnitude that they actually "suffocate" the Business. And this remains dramatically "hidden", to the point that recognized thinkers of business science go so far as to recommend that the Organization ask itself the question, what business are we in?
And it is logical to understand that very large organizations lose their north.
When in an organization the production and sales functions are not homogeneous, it is very difficult to define the business. If furniture, automobiles and real estate are produced and sold in an Organization, it must be understood that there is more than one Business and that therefore the Organization has a corporate structure. Then, it is very difficult to determine which is the Business of the corporation as a whole.
In these large organizations (which on the other hand are increasingly closer to being properly called "jurassic organizations"), the bureaucratic structure takes on such a magnitude that it conditions the management approach. The management manages the Organization focused on the interests of the Bureaucracy and not on the interests of the Business, because in addition, many times it is possible to wonder what the Business really is.
Given the existence of functions that justify the Business on the one hand and the Bureaucracy on the other, it is appropriate to ask where is the Marketing function registered? No Marketing theorist will easily accept positioning this term as a synonym for Sales. The understanding of Marketing today passes beyond this single consideration. It transits between the evaluation and the proposal of many additional factors of the commercial phenomenology: market, clients, tendencies, habits, inclinations, dispositions, customs, culture, etc.
Functionally, Marketing is attributed a scope of work greater than that which can be understood for sales. In many cases, they are even faced with the dilemma of narrowing down or classifying their own scope of work.
On this point the comments of Jean Jacques Lambin are very interesting, who in his book Strategic Marketing says that there are three popular meanings of Marketing:
- “Marketing, says one, is advertising, promotion and pressure selling, that is, a particularly aggressive set of sales means used to conquer existing markets.” “Marketing, says another, is a set of analysis tools, forecasting methods and market studies, used in order to develop a prospective approach to needs and demand. ”“ Marketing, says the latter, is the great corrupter, the architect of society of consumption, that is, of a market system in which individuals are objects of commercial exploitation by the seller ”.
Finally, Lambin himself gives an interpretation of Marketing:
- "Marketing is the social process, oriented towards satisfying the needs and desires of individuals and organizations, through the creation and voluntary and competitive exchange of profit-generating products and services."
The way in which Lambin poses the interpretations even illustrates a kind of evolutionary process of the meaning of Marketing, at least in terms of popular understanding (and there is no reason to think that this is not shared in the professional perspective). From being understood first as a “set of aggressive sales means”, it ends up being understood as “a social process”.
What is clear is that Marketing is not conceived as a substitute term for Sales, which on the other hand is absolutely logical, since there would be no more absurd effort than that invested in the mere fact of finding perfectly substitute words or concepts.
Now, if it is agreed that Marketing is not the same as Sales, then in basic respect to the analysis methodology, it will have to be discarded as a function of the Business and it will have to be included among the functions of the Bureaucracy.
From the point of view of structural analysis (the Organization as such and the Business that supports it), Marketing receives a first vital qualifier: it is a support function and as such is subordinate to Sales. This subordination must make it very clear that Marketing is not a function that directs Sales, since support can never be understood as direction.
And with Marketing, the same is fulfilled as with any of the other functions of the Bureaucracy: if the Organization orients its management approaches from the interests of the Bureaucracy, it notably weakens the interests of the Business.
The Business demands that the management approach start from Sales and not reach them.
In an effort to understand why the interpretation of Marketing reaches the point of positioning itself as the guiding element of Sales, in clear violation of a basic conceptual subordination, the process of analysis of the second dimension of the organizational phenomenon begins: the functional aspect.
If in structural terms the Organization is made up of the Business and the Bureaucracy, in functional terms its government is in charge of Strategy and Administration.
The confusion that exists in the functional analysis of the phenomenon clearly explains that kind of “epistemological usurpation” that Marketing commits by claiming the direction of Sales.
Both Management and Strategy are concepts of government. However, their specific objects of work differ in a remarkable way. Although the criterion of conceptual subordination between the two is not very clear, the difference between their functional scope can be perfectly understood.
Strategy as a concept of government historically precedes the concept of Scientific Administration. Man knows and practices Strategy long before Administration in its current formats.
Etymologically Strategy comes from the Greek word "strategos", which means General. The latter was responsible for commanding operations in military organizations. The "strategos" exercised, of course, government functions, but did so within a specific framework of facts and circumstances.
Military operations differ from others because confrontational factors prevail among them: disputes, combat, rivalries. And all these aspects have a common denominator among them: Conflict.
The Strategy is the government function of STRATEGOS oriented to the resolution of a Conflict in favor of its own interests.
It is true that also in the case of Strategy, the Administration and its syncretism have distorted good understanding. Today it is almost impossible to find consensus among thinkers regarding the fundamental meaning of Strategy. For the Administration, the Strategy is close to being a long-term “type of plan”, an orientation system to establish positions, patterns and perspectives of organizational behavior.
However, the Strategy has never ceased to be basically the function of STRATEGOS to favorably settle the Conflict, and as long as good judgment prevails, it must be understood that the resolution of the Conflict does not begin and end with a plan because it is fundamentally Action, and neither does it project its resolution in the long term, because the Conflict unfolds here and now.
The Strategy is an element of government that is based on Action and in the short term. And this statement does not obey any daring interpretation, it basically refers to the understanding of Conflict. This is not solved only with long-term plans. The Conflict is resolved with Immediate Action.
Among non-military organizations there is also the type of Conflict to which the Strategy is essentially oriented. This is much more evident in the case of business organizations. There the Conflict has a transparent nature and a very real dimension: Competition.
The existence of Competition determines the existence of the Conflict.
Any business organization that recognizes the existence of a competitor must also acknowledge the existence of Conflict.
At this point, it is not reasonable (and much less favorable) to allow the Administration to try to include different interpretations for what the Competition means and its effect on the interests of the Organization.
In the pursuit of perfecting one's own interests, Competition affects the interests of others. So clear!. It causes damage, generates damage, prevents the maximization of its own results, forces the development of cost structures and additional expenses, demands the establishment of a permanent state of readiness, etc.
The Organization does not seek any of these things on its own; it is forced to do so to mitigate the damages that the competitor may cause it.
However, it is not the Organization as such, at least in its comprehensive understanding, which is subject to Competition and Conflict. This is reserved for the Business.
It is the Business that sustains the Organization that is faced with the onslaught of the competitor. There is no competition between bureaucracies or between organizations, there is competition between businesses. Since the Business is exposed to competition, it can be said that the Organization is also exposed to it.
And the variable that explains the competitive dynamics between businesses has a name: Sales. Ultimately, it is Sales that are disputed by competitors and those that explain the existence of a state of Conflict.
The most evolved and effective government system that man knows to deal with Conflict is Strategy. For this reason, it should be understood that the Strategy is responsible for directing the interests of the Business and, for this purpose, the interests of Sales.
It is not Marketing who directs the interests of Sales, not even Administration, it is only Strategy.
The exercise of the Strategy is based on the guidance provided by the Strategic Principles. It is these principles that basically distinguish the Strategy and differentiate it from any other government system.
The Strategic Principles constitute a wise summary of the experiences of thousands of STRATEGOS in their interaction with thousands of Conflicts throughout thousands of years of history.
Strategic Principles such as Concentration; Strengths against Weaknesses, always; Make time an ally; "Everyone should benefit from victories"; Beware of the general-sovereign relationship; Coordination of momentum and time; Take the initiative; Plan the surprise; Deceive the competitor; Getting the mental advantage, etc., constitute solid and prudent knowledge to guide action.
The Strategy works functionally in the Organization from "outside in", because the fundamental Conflict (the Competition) develops in the organizational environment.
On the other hand, the Administration, as an ordered set of knowledge for the government, performs better in the management of organizational interests from the “inside out”. For this reason, the Administration is many times more efficient in managing the Bureaucracy.
But given that the environment conditions the Organization and given that the Business must condition the Bureaucracy, it is admissible to assume that then the Strategy conditions the Administration. In any case, the epistemological debate on this last aspect still sustains sharp edges, and its treatment is not of convenience in what is touched here.
It is clear, however, that the Strategy governs the interests of the Business, especially the interests of Sales. And with this assumes full rights over the title of Sales Strategy.
All work plans and programs, forecasts and actions, mental focus, management priority and general work logic of the Organization must be subject to the interests of the Sales Strategy. This includes everything in one act of a holistic nature.
Here it is pertinent to make another clarification: conceptually there is nothing that can be useful when assuming that there are “other types” of strategies: Marketing Strategy, Financial Strategy, Human Resources Strategy, etc. In business science (and practically in organizations in general), the term Strategy is reserved in its pure, clean and virginal state for Sales.
Nor is there any benefit in using the concept of Strategy as a qualifying adjective for other functions. The richness of the Strategy is not manifested even partially when it is referred to as “conceptual constructions” such as strategic marketing, strategic planning, strategic management, etc. In all these cases, the Strategy acquires an almost cosmetic character, something that neither it needs nor the functions it is supposed to enrich. Marketing, plan, administration, etc., are one thing and Strategy another. Neither they, nor this one, require “fillers”.
However, as the Administration finds a “comfort zone” in managing the interests of the Bureaucracy, it often also emphasizes the importance of the functions that comprise it. Even when it represents a disservice to the Business.
When the concept of Strategy is not firm or is not clearly established in management practices, the Administration governs the interests of the Business from the Bureaucracy. And the most useful and appropriate mechanism you find is Marketing. From Marketing, Administration reaches Sales.
In these cases, Marketing takes a leading role and not support work. When the process is repeated in a systematic way, Marketing ends up displacing the simple and elementary sense that Sales have to perfect the Business.
Then long and endless journeys can be generated in which a fantastic Marketing alchemy develops and is not sold. Then Marketing is drawn to greater complexity to be effective and increases its distance from the sales process. In this way, a state is reached in which Marketing becomes an object of study and attention in itself. Efforts are directed towards him and not from him towards a higher end.
There is an increasing number of organizations that develop brilliant and complicated Marketing programs and that nevertheless do not sell in the proportion that guarantees the solidity of the Business. There are more and more Marketing specialists who work far from sales and are ineffective. Great Marketing managers do not know elementary concepts of the Conflict and work in the style of the Bureaucracy: long and pleasant days around the "bureau", waiting for "that" brilliant idea, that visit from the muse who qualifies art.
Marketing repeatedly professes that misconception of the cult of "inspiration." An idea that frequently equates great marketing executives with rock music artists; both in rebellion and in the firm desire to make almost mystical knowledge prevail, hypothetically difficult to be understood by simple spirits.
Under the logic of the Administration, the existence of Marketing is so decisive that its action defines the being and being of the other functions. More and more financial managers in organizations do not value these Marketing disquisitions and there are not a few sales managers themselves who perfectly understand the need and the ways of selling and yet they do not understand why great Marketing executives do not they either get it or they don't.
Napoleon (that great STRATEGOS) did well when he said two hundred years ago that "war can only be learned by going towards shooting." And in the business world that is only true in the sales trench.
Marketing is not capable of becoming a unifying function either. One that achieves the commitment and orderly action of the rest of the organizational functions towards common purposes. And this, of course, is the typical case for techniques. They are intended to complement and cannot be effective in constituting the whole.
In this inappropriate and dysfunctional work scheme, the Administration continues to use its syncretism to feed without pause a Marketing approach that is not perfected. In appearance, Marketing continues to evolve, but in many cases it continues to move away from its foundation, its mission of support and the effectiveness that is guaranteed in it.
Now, the most dangerous aspect of this reality is that the misunderstood pre-eminence of Marketing, notably affects the Strategy. As Marketing momentum grows, attention to Strategy dwindles. While the focus is on Marketing, that which is paramount to the Strategy declines. While Marketing is done, Strategy is often not done.
It is clear that Marketing must be included in the Strategy, but in the effort to incorporate the Strategy among Marketing interests, the solidity of the Business is irretrievably eroded.
And at this point there is no doubt: everything that affects the Business affects the very existence of the Organization.
The responsibility for this state of affairs is not Marketing, it belongs to the Administration. This must make a turn, sooner rather than later, towards the origin and power of certain concepts. You should stop or postpone the syncretic exercise a little or at least you should orient it towards the knowledge that best supports the development of the concepts. There is much that the Administration still has to do in understanding the phenomenology and dynamics of the Organization, much to optimize its approaches and government policies of the Bureaucracy and above all, much to do to effectively engage with the interests of the Business.
In this way, syncretism will continue to be a great support for the Administration, but somewhat more distant from the dangerous point that borders on "utilitarianism" and gnoseological comfort.
Marketing is an invaluable set of techniques that greatly helps the effectiveness of the Strategy. Without well-supported knowledge of Marketing and the application of its techniques, the Organization suffers from a severe competitive disadvantage.
In supporting Sales lies the strength of Marketing. In its proper inclusion in the Strategy lies its value.
Now there is a lot of "marketing" behind Marketing itself, and this is not necessary.
On the Strategy rests the great responsibility for the health of organizations in this new era of great “externalities”.
The nature of the Conflict for organizations will inevitably evolve in terms of complexity. Few advance a different prediction. Ahead you can only expect more turbulence.
The dynamic tension that characterizes the relationship of the Organization with its environment, transits the very limits of breaking the balance. The environment is getting bigger and more powerful. The Organization needs to use every ounce of effort that its structure can provide. And the most intelligent mechanism that man has created to achieve this is not Marketing, it is Strategy.
