West, Ford, & Ibrahim

Strategic Marketing, 3rd edition

Chapter 1: Overview and Strategy
Blueprint

Douglas West, John Ford, and Essam Ibrahim, 2015. All rights reserved.

A. INTRODUCTION
1. Overview and Strategy Blueprint
2. Marketing Strategy: Analysis &
perspectives

C. WHERE DO WE WANT TO BE?

B. WHERE ARE WE NOW?
3. Environmental & Internal Analysis:
Market Information & Intelligence,
Financial Analyses

4. Strategic Marketing Decisions,

Choices & Mistakes
5. Segmentation, Targeting
& Positioning Strategies
6. Branding Strategies
7. Relational & Sustainability
Strategies

D. HOW WILL WE GET THERE?

E. DID WE GET THERE?
14. Strategy Implementation, Control
& Metrics

West, Ford, & Ibrahim: Strategic Marketing, 3rd edition

8. Product Innovation & Development

Strategies
9. Service Marketing Strategies
10. Pricing & Distribution Strategies
11. Marketing Communications Strategies
12. International Marketing Strategies
13. Social and Ethical Strategies

Learning Objectives
1. Be able to define marketing strategy.
2. Understand the essential differences between the main
approaches towards marketing strategy.
3. Review the structure of the book.
4. Assess the importance of marketing strategy to a
business and identify the kinds of things that can go
wrong.

West, Ford, & Ibrahim: Strategic Marketing, 3rd edition

Introduction: Definition of Competitive

Marketing Strategy
A market-oriented strategy that
establishes a profitable & sustainable
market position for the firm against all
forces that determine industry
competition by continuously creating &
developing a competitive advantage
from the potential sources that exist in
a firms value chain.

West, Ford, & Ibrahim: Strategic Marketing, 3rd edition

Key Elements
Market-oriented:

Strategy based upon the needs & wants of the

marketplace

Establishes a
profitable market
position:

End goal of strategy to make a profit in the forprofit sector or to meet alternate metrics (NFP
sector)

Establishes a
sustainable market
position:

Marketing strategy not about one-off

transactions. Aim is to find a place in the
market

Forces that
determine industry
competition:

Complex mix of ingredients that create the

marketing whirlwind

Continuously
creating &
developing CA:

Find a spot where, if need be, the primary

challenges can be tackled

Potential sources
that exist in a
firms value chain:

What value any organisation wants to create

using its available marketing resources

West, Ford, & Ibrahim: Strategic Marketing, 3rd edition

Definition
Marketing strategy isa market-oriented
approach that establishes a profitable
market position for an organisation
against all forces that determine
industry competition by continuously
creating & developing a sustainable
competitive advantage (SCA) from the
potential sources that exist in a firms
value chain.

West, Ford, & Ibrahim: Strategic Marketing, 3rd edition

Dress Down Version!

Marketing strategy is an approach to
enable an organisation to best use it
resources to meet the needs of its
customers.

7
West, Ford, & Ibrahim: Strategic Marketing, 3rd edition

Marketing Strategy is a Gap Analysis

Formulate
Marketing
Strategies

Internal
Environment:
Resources &
Capabilities

External
Environment:
Strategic
Fit

Gap
analysis

West, Ford, & Ibrahim: Strategic Marketing, 3rd edition

Market Scan &

Scenarios

Strategy......
The word Strategy was initially introduced and
defined in the ancient military dictionaries
It comes from the Greek word strategos, strictly
meaning a general in command of an army; it is
formed from stratos, meaning army and ag,
meaning to lead
Used first time in business literature by William
Newman (1951)

West, Ford, & Ibrahim: Strategic Marketing, 3rd edition

The Concept of Strategy

Generic
a plan of attack for winning
a plan for beating the opposition

Organisational
a plan for achieving organisational goals
a plan for securing a competitive advantage in a
given market

West, Ford, & Ibrahim: Strategic Marketing, 3rd edition

Purpose of Strategy
To set the future direction for the organisation
To state how it is to create value to customers
To identify what product/s and in which markets
the firm will invest its resources
To describe how it is to perform better than
competition
West, Ford, & Ibrahim: Strategic Marketing, 3rd edition

It helps
Define the scope of business
Finding Strategic Fit between organisation
and its environment
Identifying a Sustainable Competitive
Advantage (SCA)
Guiding the allocation of resources
West, Ford, & Ibrahim: Strategic Marketing, 3rd edition

Thinking First

Cognitively analysing
a strategic marketing
problem & developing
the solution (the
strategy) through a
carefully thought-out
process

West, Ford, & Ibrahim: Strategic Marketing, 3rd edition

It can help to see the

big picture occasionally
throughout the process.
It can involve some
inspiration & insight, but
largely the process is
one of painstakingly
doing your homework

Market Orientation

Self-centred

Customer
Compelled

Sceptical

(Day, 1998)
West, Ford, & Ibrahim: Strategic Marketing, 3rd edition

4 Main Ways of Approaching Marketing

Strategy

THINKING FIRST
SEEING FIRST
DOING FIRST
SIMPLE RULES

West, Ford, & Ibrahim: Strategic Marketing, 3rd edition

COMPETITIVE
MARKETING
STRATEGY

Seeing First

Importance of seeing the overall decision

is sometimes greater than thinking about
it
Insight often only comes after a period
of preparation, incubation, illumination &
verification in the cold light of day
The 'eureka' moment

West, Ford, & Ibrahim: Strategic Marketing, 3rd edition

Doing First
(1) do something, (2) make sense of it
(3) repeat the successful parts & discard the rest.
Instead of marketing strategy
the reality is often that doing drives
Many companies have successfully diversified their businesses
by a process of figuring out what worked & what did not

West, Ford, & Ibrahim: Strategic Marketing, 3rd edition

DO
DO SOMETHING
SOMETHING

MAKE
MAKE SENSE
SENSE OF
OF IT
IT

REPEAT
REPEAT THE
THE SUCCESSFUL
SUCCESSFUL PARTS
PARTS

DISCARD
DISCARD THE
THE REST
REST

West, Ford, & Ibrahim: Strategic Marketing, 3rd edition

Postmodern view

Tricksterism
Entertainment
Amplification
Secrecy
Exclusivity
(Brown, 2003)
West, Ford, & Ibrahim: Strategic Marketing, 3rd edition

Simple Rules
How-to rules keeping managers organised to be able to seize opportunities
Boundary rules help managers to pick the best opportunities
based geography, customers or technology
Priority rules are about allocating resources amongst competing opportunities
Timing rules relate to the rhythm of key strategic processes
Exit rules are about pulling out from past opportunities

West, Ford, & Ibrahim: Strategic Marketing, 3rd edition

Process and Temporality and the Four Main

Approaches to Competitive Marketing Strategy
PROCESS
Experiential

Cognitive

TEMPORALITY

Short-Term
SIMPLE
SIMPLE RULES
RULES

SEEING
SEEING FIRST
FIRST

DOING
DOING FIRST
FIRST

THINKING
THINKING FIRST
FIRST

Long-Term

West, Ford, & Ibrahim: Strategic Marketing, 3rd edition

What to Choose?
Thinking First/Market Orienation works best when the
issues are clear, the data are reliable, the context is
structured, thoughts can be pinned down & discipline
can be applied
Seeing First works best when many elements have to
be creatively applied, commitment to solutions is key &
communications across boundaries are needed (e.g. in
NPD)
Doing First or simple rules work best when the situation
is novel & confusing, complicated specifications would
get in the way & a few simple relationship rules can
help move the process forward
The Postmodern orientation needs to be continually
borne in mind to provide a check on how, in reality,
buyers will interpret the final offering
West, Ford, & Ibrahim: Strategic Marketing, 3rd edition

Marketing Strategy Blueprint

PHASE 1
Where are
we now?

PHASE 2
Where do we
want to be?

PHASE 3
How will
we get there?

Market
MarketScan/
Scan/
Scenarios
Scenarios

Objectives
Objectives
&&Future
Future
Directions
Directions

Action
ActionPlan
Plan

Internal
Internal
Analysis
Analysis

A
U
D
I
T

Segment
Segment

Target
Target
Strategic
Strategic
Fit
Fit

S
T
R
A
T
E
G
Y

Position
Position

West, Ford, & Ibrahim: Strategic Marketing, 3rd edition

Marketing
Marketing
Mix
Mix

Contingency
Contingency

PHASE 4
Did we
get there?
Monitor
Monitor

T
R
A
N
S
L
A
T
I
O
N

Possible
Possible
Corrective
Corrective
Action
Action

E
V
A
L
U
A
T
I
O
N

Conclusion
Seeing First or Doing First are
approaches to decision-making that
normally need a sound understanding of
Thinking First to be successful
You need to know the rules before you
should break themyou can break all
the rules once you know what they are!

West, Ford, & Ibrahim: Strategic Marketing, 3rd edition