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Friday, December 7, 2007

scope

Relationship marketing has been strongly influenced by reengineering. According to reengineering theory, organizations should be structured according to complete tasks and processes rather than functions. That is, cross-functional teams should be responsible for a whole process, from beginning to end, rather than having the work go from one functional department to another. Traditional marketing is said to use the functional department approach. This can be seen in the traditional four P's of the marketing mix. Pricing, product management, promotion, and placement are claimed to be functional silos that must be accessed by the marketer if she is going to perform her task. According to Gordon (1999), the marketing mix approach is too limited to provide a usable framework for assessing and developing customer relationships in many industries and should be replaced by an alternative model where the focus is on customers and relationships rather than markets and products.

In contrast, relationship marketing is cross-functional marketing. It is organized around processes that involve all aspects of the organization. In fact, some commentators prefer to call relationship marketing "relationship management" in recognition of the fact that it involves much more than that which is normally included in marketing.

Martin Christopher, Adrian Payne, and David Ballantyne at the Cranfield Graduate school of Management claim that relationship marketing has the potential to forge a new synthesis between quality management, customer service management, and marketing. They see marketing and customer service as inseparable.

In spite of this broad scope, relationship marketing has not lost its core marketing orientation though. It involves the application of the marketing philosophy to all parts of the organization. Every employee is said to be a "part-time marketer". The way Regis McKenna (1991) puts it:

"Marketing is not a function; it is a way of doing business . . . marketing has to be all pervasive, part of everyone's job description, from the receptionist to the board of directors."

Because of this, it is claimed that relationship marketing is a more pure form of marketing than traditional marketing.

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