Journal Article

Marketing's contribution to the implementation of business strategy: an empirical analysis

Olson, Eric M., Slater, Stanley F.

2001

Overview

This paper describes a study that assesses the performance implications of matching marketing strategy to business strategy. In order to conduct this study we first reviewed the literature on marketing strategy to identify its key dimensions. We then conducted a survey of 1000 senior marketing executives about the strategic marketing practices adopted in their respective firms or business units, and developed scales to describe 11 strategic marketing activities. We next performed a K-means cluster analysis using these scales to develop a taxonomy of marketing strategy types consisting of: Aggressive Marketers, Mass Marketers, Marketing Minimizers, and Value Marketers. We then observed that superior performance at the firm or SBU level was achieved when specific marketing strategy types were matched with appropriate Miles and Snow (1978) business strategy types.

• Publisher: John Wiley & Sons, Ltd,John Wiley and Sons,Wiley,Wiley Periodicals Inc
• Subject: Advertising / Applied sciences / Business / Business strategies / business strategy / Business structures / Classification / Cluster analysis / Competition / Corporate strategies / Customer services / Empirical research / Exact sciences and technology / Executives / Firm modelling / Interviews / Literature reviews / Management / Market performance analysis / Market segments / Market strategy / Marketing / Marketing strategies / marketing strategy / Operational research and scientific management / Operational research. Management science / Organizational effectiveness / performance strategy types / Personal selling / Price premiums / Product innovation / Product lines / Prospecting / Strategic management / Strategies / Strategy implementation / Studies / Taxonomy