Marketing Management in the 21st Century

MARKETING ACTIVITY is at the core of managing a business; it provides the focus for interfacing with customers and is the primary source of intelligence about customers, competitors, and the business environment in general. Marketing must be concerned with the long-run relationship of the firm with its customers as well as short-run sales activity. In this era of managerial concerns such as quality management, downsizing, reengineering, and outsourcing, marketing has become a major organizational thrust rather than just a task assigned to a single functional department. This book emphasizes the role of marketing in creating value for customers because customer value in turn leads to the creation of value for other firm stakeholders including stockholders and employees.