The Importance Of Marketing Orientation

The marketing environment of today has changed dramatically and thus companies must effectively devise strategies for responding to, and dealing with this change, while ensuring maximum customer value and satisfaction (McFarlane & Britt, 2007). In order to achieve organizational goals therefore, an organization should be more effective than competitors in integrating marketing activities towards determining and satisfying the needs and wants of the target markets (Kotler & Armstrong, 2010). This assertion is consistent with McFarlane, (2013) view that businesses cannot survive without creating value for customers because that is why they exist; they are driven and shaped by customer needs and wants, and the degree to which they are able to meet these needs and wants through value creation. This perspective of focusing organizations’ activities on the customer can be summed up in the term ‘Marketing concept’ (Zeithaml, Bitner & Wilson, 2013).

Slater and Narver, (2000) holds the view that marketing orientation as a business culture enables businesses to understand the market and develop appropriate customer focused strategies. These strategies translate into high levels of customer

It is a concept that challenges the traditional three concepts namely: production concept, where a company focused upon the science of manufacturing; product concept, where a business focused on the production processes and the quality of a particular product and selling concept whereby products are proactively sold based upon features rather than the benefits to the individual customer and his or her needs (Keller & Kotler, 2009). Marketing concept is therefore a management philosophy and an integrated approach that needs to be implemented across the firm in order to achieve its full benefits (Zeithaml et al.,