Introduction
Faced with the times of change in which the vast majority of companies live, due to free trade, technological advances, integration, globalization and telecommunications, changes are required that help them to be more competitive and that give them foundations to overcome negative indicators such as having a deficient or obsolete technology, financial constraints, narrow market share, the collapse in the number of sales, among others.
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Taking into account this obligation of change to which organizations are currently exposed, this crisis directs the social and human scope of these companies, since it is these companies who are responsible for the generation of defense mechanisms to overcome adversity and manage to survive. to the fierce world of competitiveness. Consequently, workers change, jobs evolve and therefore the way things are done, tools, among others, also change
In the referenced problem and to better understand it, it is convenient to take a look at the role of the employee within the organization: since the 1950s, the employer demanded from this production effort, creativity, autonomy were inappropriate aspects to be in the organization. For which, the hierarchy of commands and supervision of the task was established, where internal communication was non-existent, an order was enough to obtain compliance without any complaint or request. The work was of individual recognition, the salary structure was rigid, absenteeism was discounted, turnover was scarce, staff training was seen as unnecessary unless it was required by technological changes. (prevailing economic models, Taylor Fayol)
But all this way of managing personnel, which in the past requested by the retired military, was reevaluated because of the various crises that organizations have gone through. It became necessary to see each of the workers as collaborators on whom the final results depended, to understand that their link with the company was essential when analyzing their level of performance and productivity (humanistic theories for the development of potential productive)
This is how companies began to internally diagnose themselves, seeing the company's staff as their internal client, towards whom, due to their importance, it was necessary to take measures aimed at establishing a close relationship, achieving in them a vision of satisfaction and a projective mirror. abroad, on the image not only of the product but of the company, benefits, policies, culture, management, etc. (Strategic management)
Getting to recognize competitive advantage in human capital has not been an easy task, which entails looking at each member of the company as a representation of a client, in whom we must also establish objectives aligned with the business strategy. (Integral management)
According to some authors:
"It is the incorporation of marketing knowledge to management and internal development of the organization" Ardnt
"Organizations have two types of market, an external market based on the product-market binomial and an internal market based on the individual-organization binomial, the latter is what we will call internal marketing." Levionnois
"It is the set of techniques that allow the company idea to be sold to a market made up of the workers (internal clients) who carry out their activity in it, with the ultimate objective of increasing their motivation and, as a direct consequence, their productivity" Gasco y Rabassa
Internal Marketing or Endomarketing
The term Endomarketing, is made up of the Greek prefix "ENDO" which means (interior action or movement within). In other words, it would be to direct the marketing or sell the company first to the internal public of the organization.
Today, it is a necessity that the entire organization speak the same language, and not in the sense of the term, whether they speak Spanish or English, it is in which each of the collaborators know what they are there for, develop the same philosophy, Their actions are aimed at achieving the objectives, motivated and linked to the company, which they want to contribute to the achievements and scope of the success of the strategy. This is essential and necessary to achieve positive organizational results. (know, understand and operationalize the teleological or missionary component)
Any action directed towards the internal personnel of the company will act in a significant way and will have a direct effect on aspects such as performance, productivity, linkage and therefore on the competitive value or intangible asset of the organization.
In the development of this document we will see how the satisfaction of each of the collaborators, not only in their position but also in their relationship and permanence in the company, involves other aspects such as the remuneration system, that is, salary, rewards and incentives; the work environment, the image and positioning of the company, its management, among others.
Some authors have classified the objectives of Endomarketing as follows:
- General: achieve constant motivation of employees and collaborators in such a way that it is consciously spread over customers
- Strategic: create among employees an internal environment conducive to empowering and serving customers with efficiency and quality.
- Tactical: promoting service campaigns and marketing efforts to employees, so that they understand that the company's first market is its employees and collaborators.
We can conclude that the main objective of Endomarketing is to strengthen relationships within the company with the function of integrating the notion of customer and internal supplier, ensuring that employees have a shared vision of the company's business, including sections such as management, goals, results, products, services and markets in which it operates. With which the quality of the products will be achieved as well as the productivity of the collaborators and will be reflected in the work environment.
To understand endomarketing a little more, we can make the following similarities with the general marketing components:
Let's see, briefly, these elements:
1.- Client = Worker. It is the internal client of the company, their preferences, desires, concerns, needs, among others, must be known and considered when establishing the social policy and strategy. It is necessary to rely on techniques similar to those used in marketing market research such as surveys, panels, group meetings, etc. In order to establish agreements that involve the worker with the management of the company.
2.- Product = Company. The product to be offered to this internal client is the organization with its strengths and weaknesses, threats and opportunities, its organizational structure, objectives, policies and strategy, to link it in the process and search for the best result. Some authors consider that among the most outstanding characteristics of the product are: increased levels of productivity, greater participation and improvement of working conditions.
3.- Sales Technique = Internal Communication. Like any marketing plan, communication is a necessary basis for the success and achievement of objectives. Therefore, we could not talk about Endomarketing without relating it to the internal communication of the organization, for which it is necessary to establish a CI plan, which must be developed and promoted in a cascade, that is, all collaborators must be informed, at all levels and in all senses.
The descending Internal Communication will allow to transmit objectives, policies and actions, that is, to sell the business idea that you want to achieve. The ascendant will facilitate the knowledge of the opinion of the internal market, will contrast the coherence of the messages issued and will measure their degree of impact.
4.- Sales Force = Management Team. All employees of the company and, especially, middle managers and managers, must become sellers of the ideals and objectives of the organization, with a view to promoting participation and loyalty of each of the members.
5.- Final Objective = Increase Motivation. It cannot be ignored, as expressed in the objective of Endomarketing, which is to achieve an increase in the motivation of workers as a method to increase productivity, improve the climate and the quality of tasks.
The success of the Endomarketing plan is the result of the exchange process between the various management departments in its implementation within the organization, it is necessary to establish that it can originate in a department, a committee, or an interdisciplinary team or common objectives, etc..
What is clear is that the level and success of the information exchange, taking into account the hierarchical levels, the quality of the message, the time spent, the understanding by the receiver, among others, everything must be aimed at satisfying both the objectives established in the plan and for obvious reasons aligned with the organizational strategy, in order that those of the employees can achieve them.
To establish the marketing plan, the only desire of the management is not enough, since it requires launching, in parallel to the Endomarketing plan, a compensation plan, which contains levels of salaries, financing, etc., in order to prosecute All actions to be carried out within the company and also all HR management - selection, recruitment, training,… - must be oriented to the internal marketing plan.
Following the above, we can say that internal marketing is oriented to the following approaches:
1. Towards increasing employee motivation and satisfaction
This approach has its origin in the 1980s as a result of the conceptualization of service marketing oriented towards the interior of the company, at the beginning of the decade Leonard Berry, expressed that it should "view employees as internal customers, see jobs as internal products that satisfy the needs and wants of those internal customers while achieving the organization's goals."
Ten years later Berry and Parasuraman established that “Internal Marketing consists of attracting, developing, motivating and retaining qualified employees towards the jobs-products that satisfy their needs. Internal marketing is a philosophy based on treating employees as customers and it is the strategy of aligning jobs-products with the satisfaction of human needs ”.
2. For the development of external customer orientation
Based on the previous approach, another conception is established, this one seeks to share with the collaborators a mentality in the market and its influence in the development of the satisfaction of its external clients. In this way, Endomarketing is applied as "a means to integrate the different functional areas, this being vital for the customer's relationship with the company" expression used by Grönroos.
There have been several authors who have expressed how internal marketing is configured as an instrument to achieve the strategic objectives of the organization, that is, it is a strategic and necessary tool to achieve the success of the company.
3. As an instrument to implement a strategy
As a strategic approach regarding the contribution of internal marketing to reduce or eliminate possible conflicts between departments, committees, interdisciplinary groups, among others, in order to overcome resistance to change within organizations.
In this regard, Ahmed and Rafiq state that "Internal Marketing is the planned effort to motivate employees through marketing techniques to implement and integrate customer-oriented business strategies".
The need to be more competitive not only in quality, but in the recognition and positioning of their brand, makes organizations value their collaborators because they recognize in them the intangible asset that the company has, which is an indicator of success and achievement in achieving the strategic objectives is the degree of motivation and loyalty of its members. Hence, Endomarketing is established as a tool to use because it is probably the best known.
The hegemonic vision currently diffused in the market places Endomarketing as an action to support the other tasks of the organization, which is characterized by offering each of the collaborators clear, coherent information, on time and by the appropriate means. However, despite being simple to apply, in practice it presents a number of weaknesses in terms of its conceptualization and applicability, which is why it has received several criticisms.
to. Organization-employee exchange: exchange of effort and creativity derived from HR per job position that provides intrinsic and extrinsic rewards
b. Management-department exchange: exchange of goals, responsibilities and means for effort to fulfill the plans
c. Exchange management-departments: exchange of goals, responsibilities and means by effort to fulfill the plans
ENDOMARKETING PLAN
Making an Endomarketing plan and executing it cannot be based on simple instincts or improvised events, much less based on faithful copies of other companies. On the contrary, it must be made up of the reality and needs of the company, with contributions from managers and, as a result, with the contribution of the human resources department.
Some specialists in the field establish four stages in any internal marketing plan which are defined as follows:
- Analysis of the Environment: in every work environment external factors have a direct or indirect impact on the organization, therefore it is important to take note of what happens outside the company. In this phase, support will be taken in: the various internal marketing plans that other companies have adopted - not to welcome and implement them but to take advantage of aspects that may be useful for the organization in which they are; Indicators, documents of trade union organizations in the sector.
The factors that are usually analyzed in this phase are those that allow the classification of the company by the characteristics of its workforce, remuneration, selection, training and promotion policies, the size of the organization and business indicators, Internal communication, all these aspects are elements of comparative analysis.
- Study of the Internal Market: once we have knowledge of the external environment, a study must be carried out within the company in order to know our own internal market. Normally, at this stage, psychosocial and occupational research methodologies are used, such as Group Meetings, In-Depth Interviews, Surveys, Worker Panels or Phillips 66, which allow detecting the expectations, opinions or problems of the workforce.
- Adaptation Process: It consists of the accommodation of the organization's resources and systems. Once the requirements imposed by the environment, the various short, medium and long-term needs are known, as well as the real and potential characteristics of the collaborators, it is necessary to proceed in the implementation of a policy of adaptation of this reality to the anticipated need that It will be raised in the immediate future and, on some occasions, already in the present.
During this phase, both the Internal Communication, the purpose of which is for the entire staff to learn about the new approaches and requirements required, as well as the various policies in human resources such as Training, as an example, in order to facilitate adaptation and make changes. without causing major trauma. In Spain, it is essential in the previous points or phases to bear in mind the various agreements established and therefore the union forces that influence within the sector and directly to the company.
- Control of the Plan: In this phase the bases with which the Endomarketing plan was established will be tested, the development of the established policies will be verified, analyzing their effectiveness, making the appropriate corrections if it is detected that they are occurring. deviations in relation to the objectives set at the beginning of this. The work environment studies will be a great support when it comes to measuring the sensitivity of all the members of the company.
Therefore, we can relate the word Endomarketing with aspects of the organization such as employee motivation, internal communication, organizational culture - values, human resources and remuneration policies, among others.
Es así, como podemos afirmar que el Endomarketing tiene como finalidad prioritaria fortalecer la relación entre los accionistas, la directiva, mandos medios y los clientes internos, para fortalecer entre todos la cultura organizacional, la visión compartida en negocio de la compañía, incluyendo ítems como gerencia, meta, resultado, producto, servicio, calidad, productividad – rendimiento, mercado de acción y la calidad de la vida en el trabajo o clima laboral.
Otros analistas recopilan el proceso a realizar en dos fases, las cuales describo a continuación:
First Phase - Diagnosis: it establishes activities to be carried out, with a view to obtaining a document with useful information consistent with the reality of the company, which allows the definition of objectives and strategies, taking advantage of the forces and opportunities and neutralizing or reducing the weaknesses and threats present within the organization. The actions to take are:
- Assessment of sectors Level of integration between sectors Relationship with consumers Assessment of internal environment Employee profile Assessment of global performance Employee potential Image of the company Level of motivation Expectations and aspirations Training needs to be in a team Knowledge of company values
Second phase - action plan: once the diagnosis is made, which using medical language would be nothing more than an internal x-ray of the organization, with which it is possible to observe the strengths, weaknesses, capacities and threats of this. Several activities must be carried out in order to implement the internal marketing plan, these are:
- Information gathering Preparation for changes - organizational awareness Integration Construction according to the needs of the organization Override Application, control and adjustments
It is important to note that the willingness of the shareholders is vital to direct the plan and not err in the measures to be taken.
Conclusions
- Implementing an Endomarketing plan in the organization will allow you to have employees who are more closely linked to it, who will be subject to collaborating on the various changes for the benefit of the company, as well as establishing a cooperative relationship and implementing a culture of trust and internal communication For today's organizations, being competitive and achieving strategic objectives is increasingly linked to the active participation of employees, for which it is essential that they be aware of the importance of their work in the product, in the process chain; Additionally, the loyalty of each of the members of the organization has become a key factor, an aspect called by other authors emotional contract.Listening is one of the aspects that have great importance in the diagnosis or first phase of the Endomarketing plan, it is necessary to know first-hand the needs, expectations to be able to really give what the collaborators need.It is important to establish that Endomarketing is not the result of the internal communication of the company or that implementing an internal marketing plan will spontaneously increase the motivation of the staff which is the exclusive and non-transferable property of the individual, and can only be stimulated by a series of factors that, together or combined in proportions tailored to each person, they can increase their perception of the value of their individual motivation.Endomarketing or internal marketing management,is using with the main objective of promoting the motivation of people towards their task, position or work, in order to link it towards the achievement of the strategic goals of the company, increased productivity, and consequently the organization would obtain a greater benefit and better results.
Bibliographic support
- Internal marketing involves two types of management processes: attitude management and communication management, Ed. Quintanilla, 1994. Ahmed, P. and Rafiq, M. Internal marketing.- Tools and concepts for customer-focused management, Butterworth-Heinemann Publications, Oxford, 2002. Grönroos, C., Internal Marketing- an integral part of marketing theory, in Marketing of Services. Ed. JH Donnelly and WR George - pp. 236-238. American Marketing Association Proceedings Series, Chicago, 1981.
Web support
- Internal Marketing:
www.tendences21.net/marketing/index.php?action=article&id_article=686047 Concept Presentation of your book - Mª Isabel Sánchez Hernández, Internal Marketing to innovate in services
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