SCCaT Stephen Cashman Consultancy & Training The essentials of strategic marketing planning AMA Speaker’s Tour - Autumn 2003 Birmingham - Bristol - Glasgow - London Overview of session (cid:137) The ‘Thinking BIG!’ SMP framework (cid:137) Marketing, strategy & strategic marketing - working definitions (cid:137) Mission as the starting point (cid:137) Using the two pivotal tools: SWOT & TOWS (cid:137) Identifying strategy sets using TOWS The underlying stages of marketing planning (cid:137) 1. Goal setting - Why are we here & where shall we go? (cid:137) 2. Situational analysis - Where are we now, what’s out there, and what are we dealing with? (cid:137) 3. Action planning & targeting - What shall we do & who should we do it with? (cid:137) 4. Implementation - How do we best put our plans into action? (cid:137) 5. Evaluation - How will we know when we’ve got to our goal and if it all worked? The ‘Thinking BIG!’ strategic marketing planning [SMP] framework SMP phase 1 STRATEGIC GOAL SETTING SMP phase 2 STRATEGIC ANALYSIS SMP phase 3 MAKING & SELECTING STRATEGIES SMP phase 4 STRATEGIC ACTION The marketing concept Thoughts on strategy - 1 (cid:137) It’s important: (cid:122) ‘Every company needs a strategy - either explicit or implicit’ Costas Marikides [1995] (cid:122) ‘The survival, growth and prosperity of any organisation depends on the quality and viability of the strategy the organisation is pursuing’ Andrew Kakabadse, Ron Ludlow & Susan Vinicombe [1988] Thoughts on strategy - 2 (cid:137) But beware! : (cid:122) ‘The word “strategy” has become one of the most common and badly used words in business writing.’ Paul Fifield [1992] (cid:122) ‘There is no single, universal accepted definition [of strategy]. Different authors and managers use the term differently .’ Mintzberg & Quinn [1998] (cid:122) ‘Strategy is very important. But no one knows what it means. Every professor in the world has a different version of what strategy means.’ Jo Owen [2002] Thoughts on strategy - 3 (cid:137) Helpful thoughts: (cid:122) ‘Strategy is concerned with making major decisions affecting the long-term direction of the business’ Drummond & Ensor [1999] (cid:122) ‘[Strategic management] is a systematic approach to a major responsibility of management - to position and relate the firm to its environment in a way that assures its success and makes it secure from surprises’ Ansoff & McDonnell [1990] Key characteristics of strategy (cid:137) It’s something that’s very important (cid:137) No hard & fast definitions - can depend upon perspective (cid:137) Concerned with addressing big organisational issues (cid:137) About aligning the organisation with its environment in order to maintain ‘fit’ So Strategic Marketing … is the application of a strategic approach to an organisation’s marketing activities which thus contributes to the achievement of the organisation’s overall goals