I. Abstract
The paper aims to study the concept of market orientation and to understand the balance between the marketing strategy and marketing capabilities abreast of the marketing orientation. Marketing strategy is very important for the businesses in the contemporary world, and it must be focused to achieve the high profitability. The higher the marketing oriented the company will be, the higher it can achieve the profit. The marketing orientation is the marketing strategy that focuses on the needs and demands of the customers while developing product along with identifying the strengths and weaknesses of the competitors. Marketing orientation is the major aspect of marketing strategy, where, the marketing strategy is impossible to achieve its objectives and success without the set of important marketing capabilities.
II. Acknowledgment
I would like to thank my professor that helped me to polish myself to understand the topic I have discussed and researched in the paper by assigning this task to me. I definitely wish to thank all those writers, researchers, and scholars that have studied about the topics relevant to my topic so that I used their findings, literature, and statements to understand my topic.
I also wish to show my gratitude to my parents, family, friends and fellows to support me in different ways, either by providing me time, space and support or helping me to find the data and information relevant to my topic.
Introduction
Marketing strategy is one of the most fundamental aspects of the business for all the firms either newly startup company or a multinational firm; the marketing strategy provides the critical path to the whole business. The organization can easily promote their products, services and the business as the whole using a well designed and considerable marketing strategy with the help of targeting the right clients or customers and allocating the sufficient resources in the correct way. The marketing strategies are usually comprised of many features and facets that the businesses must consider as important all the time. The companies while deciding the right target market or audience must consider the important factors as the most important include risks, shareholder value, and the digital technology impact. The marketing is the most persuasive as well as a pervasive action within the society that is something far beyond the selling the product. The marketing strategy is designed with some more specific functions to include pricing, improving product, communication, promotion and distribution (Kotler & Levy 10). The paper is aimed to understand the how the market strategy can be influential to gain the highest profitability.
The purpose of the study is to understand the impacts of being market oriented in the marketing strategy as there are growing evidence that the companies can gain the higher profitability with the high market orientation in the market strategy. Based on this purpose of the study, the paper is going to achieve the following objectives:
Findings
Definition of Market Orientation
Marketing orientation is a model of business that mainly focus on the market such as the desires, needs and demands of the customers while designing and delivering the product, apart from focusing on the features and efficiency of the product i.e. commonly called as product orientation. The more authentic definition of marketing orientation in the journals of marketing is that it is the intelligence about the market in relevancy to the future as well as current needs, and demands of the customers and the intelligence are being distributed and disseminated across the organizational departments to the response it. According to some studies, the marketing orientation is the actual execution and implementation of the marketing concept. The marketing orientation appears as providing the combined and focused set of efforts to the departments and even individuals within the organization setting (Slater & John 63-68; Kohli & Bernard 2-3).
Marketing orientation possesses many characteristics. The first major characteristic is the focus towards the customer needs as the top priority, and it is the major concern to understand these needs constantly. To understand the customer needs, the market research is very important. Therefore, the market research based activities are also included in the characteristics of marketing orientation. Another characteristic of this marketing aspect is that perception of the customer about the organization is known for marketing orientation. Some other characteristics include an appreciation of long term planning value; changes are taken as predictable within the business scope; evaluation of activities of marketing is being frequently done; the strength and weakness of the competitors are being reviewed frequently (Slater & John 63-68).
Equation between marketing strategy and strategic capabilities
Many studies have already discussed and found that the strategy of the business must be aligned and interrelated with its resources and capabilities based on the resource based view. Many studies have found that the marketing capabilities of the organization enable the company to realize its strategy. Based on these perspectives and discussion, Vorhies et al. (1310) have found the strong relationship between the marketing strategy and marketing capabilities.
The marketing capabilities are very important to determine the success of the firms. The study has discussed that the marketing strategy is very important for the company; however, it must be balanced with the marketing capabilities of the organization. The strategy based on the marketing capabilities of the organization helps it to achieve the competitive advantage in the market. This is the balance between marketing strategy and marketing capabilities that is very important to understand by the firms to be competitive in the marketplace.
Perspective of concept and equation
The market orientation and the relationship between marketing strategy and marketing capabilities are the two perspectives that are actually interrelated to each other. The strategy of the organization is actually taken as to define the marketing orientation of the company that how much the company focuses on the strength and weaknesses of the company in comparison to its competitors and how the company is being focused towards the customers and departmental activities. Within this perspective of marketing orientation with the marketing strategy, the study has argued that the firms require possessing a complete set of marketing capabilities to achieve the benefits of the marketing strategy in the context of the activities of marketing orientation.
Analysis
Introduction of Company
The Royal Group is the largest Company group in Cambodia that is extremely diversified and holds the company is various sectors and industries of the market include banking, media, telecommunication, education, trading, resort, property, and agriculture, etc. The company was originated in Phnom Penh; however, it has been expanded throughout the country and even internationally with the passage of time (Royal Group).
Strategic Capabilities of the Company
Royal Cambodia is the largest group of companies in the country that possesses various capabilities. The company is found as the most innovative in the country as it is the company that has introduced many new products and services within the country such as modern office equipment (United Nations & ESCAP). Other than the innovation, another major capability of the company is its diversity as it is involved in multiple businesses such as import and export, fish farming, office equipment production and distribution, telecommunication services, media broadcastings, etc. Based on all these capabilities of the company, the company has been successful in its marketing strategy with the highest market orientation.
The marketing orientation of the company is very high as discussed in Handbook of United Nations & ESCAP that the knowledge of the company about the market is one of its most critical success factor. The company is completely marketing oriented as it conducts the depth research about the market, mainly to understand the needs, demands, and trends of the customers.
Outcome of the Actions
Using its major set of marketing capabilities in the context of marketing orientation activities, Royal Group has successfully developed its marketing strategy plan. The company’s owner even itself travelled around the country to talk to the people to understand the how they live, what are their trends and what are their needs and demands and then develop a successful strategy plan to run and promote the company. The group runs the most successful brands of different products and services nationally as well as internationally using trading. To achieve this success, the company also focused towards long term planning and success. It shows that how the company’s strategy is based on the activities of the marketing orientation using the set of its capabilities.
Conclusion
The conducting marketing research used its marketing capabilities to develop the best possible strategy to lead the business. This is how the company implied the concept of marketing orientation and equation and balance of marketing strategy and marketing capabilities to make the high profitability and the well known brand around the market.
Recommendation
Although the company has been gone successfully, since the business has developed, however, the increasing competition can make the company face a disadvantage if it loses its balance in the marketing strategy and marketing capabilities. Therefore, it is recommended to remain constantly research the market to understand the preferences and choices of the customers before using its capabilities to develop strategies such as product designing and development and distribution. Although the company is innovative, however, to use the innovation in the strategy, it is very important for the company to remain focus on the demands and needs of the customers in the market, where it exists. It will help the company to sustain its success and profitability in the competitive market place.
Works Cited
Kohli, Ajay K., and Bernard J. Jaworski. "Market orientation: the construct, research propositions, and managerial implications." The Journal of Marketing (1990): 1-18.
Kotler, Philip, and Sidney J. Levy. "Broadening the concept of marketing."The Journal of Marketing (1969): 10-15.
Royal Group. “About Us.” 2015. Online. 27 Jun. 2015. <http://www.royalgroup.com.kh/group-profile/>
Slater, Stanley F., and John C. Narver. "Market orientation and the learning organization." The Journal of Marketing (1995): 63-74.
United Nations and ESCAP. “Greater Mekong Subregion Business Handbook.” N.d.
Vorhies, Douglas W., Robert E. Morgan, and Chad W. Autry. "Product‐market strategy and the marketing capabilities of the firm: impact on market effectiveness and cash flow performance." Strategic Management Journal30.12 (2009): 1310-1334.
