Marketing Essays (2921 words) - Marketing, Market Orientation

Marketing Essays (2921 words) - Marketing, Market Orientation RESEARCH AREA Marketing WORKING TITLE A study of consumer purchase, consumption behavior patterns and promotional strategies adopted for marketing by Malaysian small firms RESEARCH OBJECTIVES This paper analyses market concepts, the small firms and use statistical methods to see effect of marketing on performance and growth of small firms. The paper will use primary method of data collection and perform correlation and regression analysis to analyze the impact of marketing on a small firms performance. Thus this paper confirms that marketing plays an important role for success of small business also. RESEARCH QUESTIONS How small business can have long lasting business relations with customers? How should they be able to get sustainable stream of cash inflows? What should be the business concept? What should be marketing strategies? How successful the marketing strategies prove for small business in achieving business success? Is there any relation between marketing and small firms performance? Which dimension of marketing orientation is a major contributor for performance of small firms? ABSTRACT Marketing is becoming one of the important factors for company to sell their products or services. In an ever increasing competitive world it becomes essential to stand away from the crowd and market the firms products or services in such a way so as to gain customer loyalty and establish a brand. Usually most of the market research paper focuses on big firms and small firms are usually neglected. Hence this paper highlights effect of marketing on small business. Keywords: marketing, small business firms, Malaysia, performance INTRODUCTION Malaysia is comparatively a small nation in Southeast Asia. The country is multi cultural society and legal system is primarily based on English Common Law. It is a relatively open state and pretty new industrialized economy. Given growth opportunities the country has traditional model of doing business and many new small firms are coming up in different sectors. As it is comparatively a new industrialized nation, there are many small and medium firms which account for a major sector of total business existing in Malaysia. The small and medium Industries development Corp. (SIMDEC) is the governing body for SMEs in Malaysia. Besides there is also National SME Development Council, which guides policy actions for SMEs. As per this council to separate small firms from big firms it identified SMEs in three categories based on the industry they are into. SMEs can be categorized into micro, small and medium size business entities. In this study we are focusing on small enterprises which have 5 to 50 employees and annual sales turnover more than RM 200,000 and less than RM 10 million. Small businesses are one of the most important business entities for Malaysian economy. Hence it is essential to analyze why some of them are successful while other are not keeping in view Malaysian context. For any company to succeed it is essential that the small firms are able to sell their goods at profit to customers. For this it is essential that the firms have good relation with customers, are able to meet their expectations and earn their loyalty. Problem statement- How small business can have long lasting business relations with customers. How should they be able to get sustainable stream of cash inflows. What should be the business concept? What should be marketing strategies? How successful the marketing strategies prove for small business in achieving business success? These are the few set of questions which this research paper aims to address. The paper will be analyzing marketing orientation for small business using studies done by Kohli and Jaworski (1990, 1993). Further help will be also be taken from work done by many other authors like Kotler, Narver and Slater. LITERATURE REVIEW According to Kotler (1994), marketing raised on four pillars viz. target market segment, customer needs and expectations, coordinated marketing and profitability. The views expressed by Kotler forms the basis for model on marketing orientation propounded by Slater and Narver (1990). Many scholars in marketing have done impressive and deep study on effects of marketing on success of business. Many models have been developed to test effect of marketing on business and see the antecedents and consequences of the same, (Slater and Narver 1994). As per their study Narver and Slater found positive impacts of marketing on both large and small