The very development of companies in the last decade has shown that to be successful in increasingly competitive markets, it is not enough just to have high performance. Excellence is what prevails and the key to success is that companies are able to deliver more and more value to customers. In correspondence with the above, this work addresses the conceptual definition of marketing, with the aim of analyzing the proposals of different authors referring to it, as well as its scope in the organization and its evolution, as a result of the development of today's society.
Summary
The own development of the companies in the last decade has demonstrated that to be successful in the more and more competitive markets, not alone coarse with having a high acting. The excellence is what prevails and the key of the success resides in that the companies find the appropriate objective publics and of the effective administration of the marketing that of he is derived. In correspondence with the above-mentioned, the present work approaches the conceptual definition of the marketing, with the objective of analyzing the proposals of different relating authors to it, as well as its reach in the organization and its evolution product of the development of the current society.
Introduction
The activity of commercialization of products and services is one of the first that the human being carried out in correspondence with the characteristics of the first stages of development. But this activity, with the passage of time and the increase in the number and complexity of exchanges, has evolved both in the way of understanding it and of practicing it. Marketing provides precisely a different way of conceiving and executing the commercial function or exchange relationship between two or more parties.
The term marketing began to be used in the United States at the beginning of the 20th century, although with a different meaning than today. On these dates, courses on this new discipline began to be taught in American universities and, shortly after, the first books were published. The term marketing has been consolidated today; being used both in the academic and professional world, and has a wide international recognition.
Marketing is a young discipline, with a very recent scientific development, characterized by multiple attempts to define and determine its nature and scope, which has logically given rise to numerous academic controversies. But also in companies and in society, in general.
Marketing. Conceptual definition and its scope in organizations
Marketing can be understood as a managerial function that occupies a place within the organizational structure (Minztberg, 1991) or as one of the key activities of the value chain (Porter, 1985).
Dvoskin (2004) raises three perspectives of analysis of the marketing concept, which are based on the exchange, the product and the customer, respectively.
The conceptual definition of marketing from the perspective of exchange, the AMA, (1992) proposes that it is a planning and execution process, immersed in a specific social framework, oriented to the satisfaction of the needs and desires of the individual and organizations, for the creation and voluntary and competitive exchange of profit-generating goods or services.
In the same sense, Stanton, (1969) states that it is a total system of business activities aimed at planning, setting prices, promoting and distributing products and services that meet the needs of current or potential consumers.
In other words, the axis of this definition is exchange: between two individuals, two organizations, or an individual and an organization. To fully understand the explanation, we will analyze step by step the main terms and concepts that compose it.
- That marketing is a planning and execution process implies that the discipline develops its own and differentiated analysis models beyond the type of organization in question. Marketing is defined within a social framework, therefore, as we have already said, in the needs and desires, in the technological possibilities. In this sense, the exchange process occurs in a complex social, political and cultural context.That affects both the needs of the individual and the specific possibilities of satisfying them. The client or consumer responds to their own needs. That is why we say that marketing cannot create needs, but only detect them. It is an exchange that revolves around products and services, offered by an individual or organization to a customer or consumer. What is exchanged are products or services that generate Profits Exchange is a voluntary act. If there is no possibility of choice, marketing as a discipline and as a planning and execution process ceases to make sense. Finally, within this definition, marketing develops within a competitive environmentin which other participants take part who try to satisfy, they too, the needs of the market.
From a product perspective, marketing has traditionally had four operational tools as basic instruments. These four tools, according to the scheme proposed in the 1950s by Jerome McCarthy, are known as the four Ps: Product, Price, Promotion and Place.
Dvoskin (2004) argues that this conception determines a definition based on the product, since the other questions raised by the other three P have it as a subject.
This perspective is very useful to face problems posed by traditional marketing, however, although the product is one of the main actors in marketing, it is not the only one, and to deal with complex problems it is useful to combine this effective tool with other complementary ones.. The product from this perspective is conceived as a comprehensive concept that has certain internal attributes, intrinsic to the product: variety, design, brand, size or packaging, and others that are external such as distribution, price, communication or promotion. This conception starts from the basis that it is not possible to imagine, with the marketing approach, a product or service that does not have a price, that is not distributed, or is not made known through a communication strategy.
Finally, the customer-based perspective, in this sense Levitt defines marketing as the attitude of the company to detect, anticipate and satisfy the needs of the segment of consumers chosen as target.
Levitt's definition is representative of a professional vision of marketing, in which the accent is placed on the knowledge and use of the techniques and tools that an organization has to link with its target market. In the 70s, the change in the power relations between organizations and clients generated a break in the conception of marketing that existed until now and the discipline was forced to change its perspective, paying more attention to demand or marking, a turn that was called market perception.
From this break, the paradigm focused on asking oneself based on who is thinking. The answer that a certain marketing trend found was to analyze the problem from the consumer's point of view and not from the company's point of view. In this regard and as a representative of this trend, Shapiro affirms: “… the consumer is the reason for being of all marketing activity. Indeed, the idea that the key to marketing is to satisfy the consumer has been called the concept of marketing… "
From this same perspective, Stanton and Futrell (1987) argue that marketing consists of all the activities that tend to generate and facilitate any exchange whose purpose is to satisfy human needs or desires.
Following the previous Santesmases (1993) stated that marketing is a way of conceiving and executing the exchange relationship in order to make it satisfactory to the parties involved and to society through the development, assessment, distribution and promotion by one of the parts of the goods, services or ideas that the other party needs.
On the other hand, the contribution of Vázquez and Trespalacios (1994) is considered, who distinguish several dimensions in the concept of marketing. In which they consider the exchange of values as the central element of marketing, as expressed:
“ The common denominator of all its activities. It can be defined as the communication that is established between at least two parties, with the objective that one of them obtains from the other something that it values, giving in return something that the other party appreciates. Each one can communicate to the other what they have or want and deliver it. In addition, there is freedom to accept or reject the offer of the other party ”.
The central aspect of the business philosophy of marketing is to achieve the objectives of the organization through the long-term satisfaction of the consumer, consolidating a relationship more efficiently than the competition.
As Vazquez and Trespalacios (1994) state:
" The objective is to try to know the generic needs of the consumer or basic deficiencies of nature and human condition, analyze the desires or ways in which each individual wishes to satisfy a specific need, stimulate the conversion of desires into demand, seeking creative formulas for enhance the will to buy and avoid purchasing power restrictions ”.
Vazquez and Trespalacios (1994) propose to analyze marketing as an attitude and as a function.
The orientation of the company to the market is the crucial point of marketing as an attitude or philosophy. All members of the organization must be aware of the importance of the consumer in the existence, progress and profitability of the company.
Marketing as a function
The activities aimed at achieving the objectives of the organization discovering the needs of customers and trying to satisfy them.
Marketing at the aggregate level performs two basic functions: it adjusts the flows of production and consumption, and it organizes the exchange relations in society. The efficient meeting between supply and demand requires the organization of two types of activities:
- The material organization of exchange, of the physical flows of goods from the place of production to the place of consumption The organization of communication, that is, the information flows that must precede, accompany and follow the exchange, in order to ensure an efficient match between supply and demand.
Analyzing in a general way, the definition of marketing is determined by its concept and focus, as well as its scope. A complete definition of marketing must first contemplate the current concept of it, which starts from the consumer's needs and tries to satisfy them. Second, you will need to take into account the latest approach to marketing that takes the terms of trade as its object of study. Finally, it must include all the areas or situations of its object of study that are considered to be within its scope - from this it follows that finding a definition is not an easy task (Santesmases, 1993).
The most generalized definition taking into account the previous elements is the one provided by Kotler (1995), who states that: «marketing is a social and management process through which different groups and individuals obtain what they need and want, creating, offering and exchanging products with value for others ».
So marketing provides precisely a different way of conceiving and executing the commercial function or exchange relationship between two or more parties. Marketing is therefore both a philosophy and a technique. As a philosophy it is a mental posture, an attitude, a way of conceiving the exchange relationship on the part of the company or entity that offers its products to the market. This concept is based on the needs and desires of the consumer and aims to satisfy them in the most beneficial way for both the consumer and the entity. As a technique, marketing is the specific mode of how to execute or carry the exchange relationship that consists of identifying, creating, developing and serving the entity.
The challenges of the new marketing
Today's companies face increasingly competitive environments, increasingly prepared and demanding consumers, progressively more complex markets, for which the traditional techniques of the old marketing are not up to the new challenges posed by scenarios difficult to attend and understand. Therefore, the new marketing is imposed, which has the client as its fundamental axis and combines imagination and scientific knowledge to achieve the best results. (Gallo and López de Miguel, 2005).
According to Kotler, (2005) the challenges of the new customer marketing are summarized in eight ways:
- Transform Marketing into a more financial and accounting discipline. Marketing should stop being seen as public enemy number one of the financial departments and in the most easily "cuttable" area. To do this, marketers must rigorously manage, in addition to defending the value of the customer base as the most critical business asset of the company. Optimizing the relationships between Marketing and Sales. Relations between Marketing and Sales should not be a pulse for leadership and a struggle to win skills and budget, but rather a true sum of synergistic forces. Bet on “High-Tech Marketing”. It is time for science to permeate Marketing to provide it with all the rigor and reliability necessary to stop being a merely intuitive area and to create new forms of customer-oriented communication. It involves an intelligent public relations model, more creative and oriented towards value-added editorial content, rather than advertising. Marketing must listen to the client to create new products and services. It means being aware ofnew market needs not when they already exist and the competition has advanced, but when they arise Create a new Customer Marketing. You have to take a three-dimensional and completely holistic approach to marketing, away from its old reductionist and one-way structures. On the path to a new marketing, the product is no longer the central axis. All the focus falls on a single protagonist: the customer. Marketing must stop being tactical and become strategic. Marketing must be a strategic element and abandon its label of "merely tactical tool". The only way to achieve this is to guide each and every marketing action based on customer value, the most important term in current marketing.
Conclusions
- Marketing has evolved in correspondence with the approaches that support it. The most modern conceptions are oriented to customer participation, as a fundamental axis for organizations. Marketing provides a different way of conceiving and executing the commercial function or exchange relationship between two or more parties. Marketing is both a philosophy and a technique. As a philosophy, it is a mental posture, an attitude, a way of conceiving the exchange relationship by the company or entity that offers its products to the market. The new marketing is based to the maximum on the customer, and the reason is given by the growing weight that intangible assets have in the valuation of companies.
Bibliography
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