What Is Marketing Management and Planning?

When one poses this question to various business executives, their replies are almost always broad or abstract. To further illustrate the various interpretations of this subject, ask ten business executives to describe how marketing as a business function contributes to their company's success and you will probably receive ten different answers.

The reason for this is because marketing suffers from an identity crisis like no other business function. Accounting, manufacturing, and human resources, for example, are all considered fairly well defined; marketing, on the other hand, is not. The reasons for this situation are so numerous it would take another book to explain it. Instead, this book addresses this facet of marketing management by defining the established standards.

To produce and implement a pure, balanced marketing plan, the term marketing management must be practiced and recognized by the organization and the customers it serves. As businesses struggle to better define what marketing is, they also need to devote their energies to defining how it should be organized around customers and products. Changes in technology, a diverse global economy, and sophisticated customers who are media savvy and demand more and more value are dictating that marketing management be a complete and strong aspect of a company's business practices. The marketing plan must reflect not only the action plan for a given year, it must represent an approach to marketing that is more than a glorified sales plan or media buying strategy. To survive and succeed in today's marketing landscape, companies must move from "power and control over" to "empowerment and cooperation of" marketing individuals. New methods such as sales automation, integrated marketing, process-based marketing organizations, and digital media access must be employed.

In defining marketing management from the concept of the word "marketing," marketing management is the actual management of the process of developing marketing thoughts. It is the ability to isolate, control, and program the function of marketing. If it were not for the function of marketing, the capitalist, or free enterprise, system would not exist as we know it. Thus marketing is the activity that creates a bridge between the item of value for sale and the customer who wants/needs that item.

What Are the Origins of Marketing Management and Planning?

Marketing gets its roots from economics. During the 1890s and perhaps earlier, students in economics at the great German business schools often went to time-consuming lengths to study firsthand the market forces in various economies. As a result, it became apparent that some type of activity had to be developed to collect data and analyze them in such a manner that the results would be scientifically accurate. Marketing was born.

By the early 1900s, many American students who had studied in Europe returned to the United States to become professors. In the process of designing courses for teaching business principles, marketing was included as part of the curriculum. Based on what they had experienced, the professors believed that marketing courses were keys to the core education that included administration, accounting, and finance. The conditions that existed during this time were less complex than those of today.