Marketing approach

In the approach to marketing is important to know and analyze the different views that marketing managers have about the future. This vision of the future will strongly condition the entire strategic planning of marketing. Thinking about the future is always a question of attitude toward the unexpected. Either we accept all fatalities and obstacles or create the conditions for conditioning or even change our own future. This truth is valid for all human activities involving any type of planning. In this marketing activity is first necessary to plan for achieve good results. Despite all the progress the marketing managers continue to demonstrate four main attitudes about the future: Passivity; Reactivity; Prevision and Proactive. With this article I intend to show these different attitudes toward the future and the consequences that may occur in any organization.

It seems a rather old-fashioned but there are still managers, leaders who have a tendency to let happen what has to happen, hoping that the future will be favorable, with good opportunities and no risk. This attitude will lead any organization, inexorably, in a relatively short period, for inefficiency, bankruptcy or failure. The organization will never be able to seize the best opportunities may not avoid the impact of adverse events. Letting go, shrug, have faith in anything, certainly not a very common attitude in the current managers, but sporadic attacks even the most preventable, in a unexpected way. The routine, fatigue and success may contribute to autism and some inertia of even the best management. The marketing planning, participatory and active, non-routine and creative, may be the solution to the success of a company or organization.

Some organizations and their respective officers may have another type of behavior: expect the future to happen, to respond on a case, hoping the reaction will allow the company to adapt in a fast and flexible in order to seize opportunities to occur, or avoid the threats and risks that may arise. This attitude of pure reaction allows sometimes victoriously face adversity or worst of scenarios. But it can hardly succeed. Rather, the market failure and defeat are common. The more unstable the market, the more necessary is the effort of forecasting and planning, so that the largest uncertainties are avoided and the organization is prepared to face the most threats, taking advantage of any opportunities. If the company does not prepare will never be ready to react.

For decades, in various historical periods, even during the last century, the evolution of markets, society in general, was slow, continuous and constant. Many managers used statistic methods of forecasting, to define its objectives. All the preparation for the future of their organizations blindly relied on the assumption that future conditions would remain similar to those of the past evolve in a continuous and regular. Extrapolated the results from past to future. The point is that evolution is often rapid and discontinuous different from past trends. The truth is that not enough to predict is necessary to anticipate the decision and even the action.

It is not enough to predict: it is now necessary to build the foundations of what is intended to happen in the future, trying to anticipate alternative scenarios of the future. Then you must decide which is the desirable future, among various possible hypotheses, within the probable scenarios. This proactive approach requires that one has to act today, to decide in advance in order to create an organization that can survive, to be effective, seize opportunities and confront threats successfully. This is the only behavior that requires management and provides both the strategic planning of marketing, whatever the format of the future.