Romanian Community
9.5 Directions in Marketing Applied Research
A key objective of the applicative research should be the mentality change among marketers. From the market orientation (Florescu et al.2003), which involves the three subdirectories that became traditional (cost orientation, demand orientation, orientation after competition) requires a paradigm shift by moving to partnership orientation. This way, the contemporary marketer must have, in our opinion, three essential characteristics (Pop et al.2015):
• empathetic thinking and action;
• rational creativity in conducting research-development-innovation activity (RDI);
• partnership spirit in all the actions it makes
Thought and empathic action allows the marketing specialist to call as accurately as possible, the needs, tastes, and preferences of the consumer, enabling them to shape their offer as close as possible to those requirements. The rational creativity will avoid unnecessary losses due to too high costs in RDI work and the transposition into a new benefit production (material product, service, right, idea) for which there is no effective demand, to justify this effort. The partnership spirit will allow the marketer to train the potential clients, from the RDI phase, to jointly making the new service. This partnership spirit is required to manifest itself both in external marketing, across all stakeholder groups involved in a business, as well as in internal marketing, towards all categories of employees in their own company.
Another key objective of the applied research concerns the vision change of the marketing action. The applied researches are required primarily focused on medium and long term, rather than to on short-term requirements solving. Such an action mode can be achieved if, at all the company’s compartments levels (whether functional or operative), marketing will be perceived as an investment rather than a cost (Pop 2008). In this way, the marketing spends will no longer be reported to the extra immediate earnings, but will follow the return of investment mechanism (ROI).
Developing a marketing doctrine at the company level (Challangolla et al.2014) is another significant object for applicative research. The marketing doctrine captures a sum of company-specific principles, resulting from the generalization of their own business experiences accumulated over time. Unlike the current marketing decision- making process, mainly based on a mechanical approach, with repetitive character, generating similar operating procedures, a company’s marketing doctrine relies on the experience of this one, accumulated in time, and on their own values, generat- ing unique principles in assessing the market relationships of each company. These principles aim to enhance the company “personality”, by creating and developing a positive image, clearly outlined, and differentiated in relation to its competitors.
Among the main goals of the applied researches, we also mention those called to promote excellence in marketing. Studies on excellence should highlight four factors categories that interact to achieve this goal: the company’s potential, the structures that configure the company, its human capital and the organization culture (Moorman and Day 2016). The company’s potential is the result of the overtime accumulation of business knowledge and experiences, how to handle relationships with all stakeholder categories, but also functional capabilities related to marketing mix components, including brand management. Company configuration looks at its organizational structure evolution and its modeling tools. The most important role is played by the intellectual capital viewed from the point of view of its two parts: human and structural (Edvinsson2006). The capital structure is constituted from organizational capital and customer capital (composed from: client databases, customer relations, clients potential). Ultimately, the business excellence can only be achieved in the presence of a solid organizational culture based on this value sets and
Fig. 9.2 How is the future of marketing of applied thinking and research applied?SourceKumar (2015, p. 7)
on the existence of a marketing doctrine. Research on business excellence requires a continuous concern for identifying and evaluating new market opportunities (Young et al. 2006), as well as developing an offensive attitude in marketing (Meyer and Davidson2001).
The future of thinking and applied research in marketing is illustrated by the scheme proposed by reputed Professor V. Kumar (see Fig.9.2).
In a simple, but suggestive manner, is marked the symbiosis between the theoreti- cal and the applicative research, which is to carry forward the thinking and marketing action.
For the Romanian economy, the marketing research must meet this requirement of the theory–practice interpenetration. The mentality change among the marketers, which we have talked about, calls for the establishment of rigorous criteria for hierar- chizing the macro- and microeconomic importance of the researches. The university and the business environment are required to cooperate much more closely, not on the basis of conjunctural or opportunity requirements, but by supporting a vision of the medium and long-term economic and social developments at national level.
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