chapter one introduction 1.1 background to...

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1 Background to the Study

Strategic Marketing is becoming more and more important for both the new and

established companies due to the complex environmental dynamics and increasing global

competition. Manufacturing companies, regardless of their age or size, are forced to build

more on strategic marketing in order to compete and survive. Strategic marketing helps to

achieve a sustainable competitive advantage (SCA) that will enhance company

performance. This is achieved through formulation of effective marketing decisions and

actions that determine the long-run performance of a marketing company.

Formulating effective marketing strategies involves recognizing relationships between

elements of the marketing mix. Although formulating a consistent strategy is a difficult

task for any management team to achieve, implementing the strategy throughout the

organization is even more difficult due to several environmental factors that can impact

on it. A myriad of factors can potentially influence the process by which strategic

marketing plans are turned into organizational action.

However, manufacturing companies in Nigeria aspiring to meet the challenges of today’s

rapidly changing markets and increasing competition require strategic marketing

decisions. Any manufacturer who fails to recognize the fact that the market place changes

every moment, may one day be forced out of business. Customer requirements and

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competitive forces change significantly every few years in sectors like manufacturing,

communications, banking, insurance, petroleum, textile, hospitality and entertainment.

Today’s economic landscape is being shaped by two powerful forces–technology and

globalization. Besides technology and globalization, other forces reshaping the Nigerian

economy include deregulation, privatization and the general reform agenda of the Federal

Government as contained in the National Economic Empowerment Development

Strategy (NEEDS, 2003) document. These changes in the environment have brought

about the need for strategic marketing in conformity with the changing nature of the

marketing environment to enable companies compete favorably.

For a manufacturing company to be competitive and increase its performance, the

adoption of strategic marketing is imperative. A company that does not strategies its

activities may find its very survival threatened, and for a marketing strategy to be

successful, organizations need to recognize its relevance and develop an effective process.

In spite of the importance of strategic marketing in the performance of manufacturing

companies, most manufacturers in Nigeria neglect the core aspect of the strategy. This

often results in ineffective and inefficient marketing, due to a host of environmental

factors that are both internal and external to the organization. Even though the

environmental factors are largely beyond the control of top managers, manufacturing

companies must deal with those factors so as to provide a framework for evaluations of

various strategic marketing issues which will consequently help to ensure company

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performance as the performance of any company depends largely on its strategic

marketing activities.

This study on strategic marketing and company performance have made unique and

valuable contributions to marketing theory as both are inevitably interrelated, and are

often complementary of each other. The two fields are in fact even inseparable, forming

two sides of the same coin, since the research results of one cannot fully be understood

without the other. Thus, this study helps to provide the relationship between strategic

marketing and company performance and thus enhance the understanding of the factors

leading to the implementation of marketing strategy.

1.2 Statement of the Problem

Manufacturing companies in Nigeria have been operating under difficult conditions in an

effort to survive the harsh Nigerian business environment. While some manufacturing

companies have closed down, others have moved to other African countries with

favourable investment climate (Esiele, 2008). What are then the factors responsible for

such closures and movements? This has been attributed to so many internal and external

environmental problems and the inability of marketing executives to recognize the

relevance of strategic marketing in the performance of manufacturing companies.

There is no doubt that there is a link between strategic marketing and company

performance. But the problem of evaluating the factors influencing strategic marketing on

the performance of manufacturing companies still exists. Previous attempts to evaluate

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strategic marketing and performance of manufacturing companies in Nigeria had ignored

the extent of the impact of some very important variables unique to the Nigerian

environment. These include the neglect of the relevance of strategic marketing by

manufacturing companies, inadequate funding, attitudes of marketing executives, lack of

basic infrastructural facilities such as stable power supply, good roads and general

environmental uncertainties brought about by changes in the legal environment-

political, cultural, technological, demographic, competitive, and international

environments- which resulted in the unprecedented closure of factories and production

plants leading to high rate of unemployment in the country (Agbonifoh & Iyayi, 1999).

These problems which have significant impact on strategic marketing and performance

of so many manufacturing companies can hamper the growth and survival of any

marketing company. The study evaluated these problems and came up with some policy

recommendations on how manufacturers can overcome them using the strategic

marketing approach which forms the basis of the study.

1.3 Research Questions

It is in the light of the above that the following research questions were raised:

1. How relevant is strategic marketing to the performance of Nigeria manufacturing

companies?

2. To what extent do funds affect strategic marketing activities of manufacturing

companies in Nigeria?

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3. What are those attitudes of marketing executives which have serious impact on

the general performance of Nigeria manufacturing companies?

4. To what extent does infrastructure affect strategic marketing activities of

manufacturing companies in Nigeria?

5. How does the environment affect strategic marketing activities of Nigeria

manufacturing companies?

6. What is the extent of the relationship between strategic marketing and company

performance?

1.4 Objectives of the study

The main objective of the study is an evaluation of factors influencing strategic

marketing on the performance of manufacturing companies. The specific objectives of

the study are:

1. To assess the relevance of strategic marketing on the performance of Nigeria

manufacturing companies.

2. To determine the influence of funds on strategic marketing activities of

manufacturing companies in Nigeria.

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3. To identify the impact of attitude of marketing executives on the performance of

Nigeria manufacturing companies.

4. To determine the extent to which infrastructure affect strategic marketing

activities of manufacturing companies in Nigeria.

5. To evaluate the effects of the environment on strategic marketing activities of

Nigeria manufacturing companies.

6. To establish the extent of the relationship between strategic marketing and

company performance.

1.5 Statement of Hypotheses and Development

For the purpose of this study, the following hypotheses have been formulated and were

tested in the course of the study:

Ho1: Strategic marketing does not have a significant relationship on the performance of


Ho2: Fund inadequacy has no significant impact on strategic marketing activities of


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Ho3: Attitude of marketing executives does not have a significant impact on the

performance of Nigeria manufacturing companies.

Ho4: There is no significant relationship between environmental factors and strategic

marketing activities of Nigeria manufacturing companies.

Ho5: Infrastructure does not have a significant impact on strategic marketing activities of


1.5.2 Hypotheses Development

Our hypotheses development is presented accordingly in line with the stated research

objectives as discussed below:

Kotler (1991) identifies the implementation of sound marketing policies and strategies,

resource adequacy and environmental scanning and analysis as keys to sustainable

competitive advantage in view of the fact that the overall success of any strategy

implementation is largely dependent on how well the strategies are formulated and how

adequate funds are made available to help in executing such strategies. He further

emphasizes the need for environmental scanning and analysis due to the uncertainties

associated with the environment so that the marketer can exploit some opportunities that

can result in improved company performance.

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Onu (2000) considers the negative attitude of some Nigerian marketers and poor

infrastructural facilities as the major factors in Nigeria. He argues that attitude of

marketing executives and the state of infrastructure can influence company performance.

He demonstrates how positive attitude will translate to increase in patronage and

subsequently better performance while negative attitude will translate to decline in

patronage and subsequently poor performance. On the other hand, Akpan (2003) states

that the availability of infrastructure or lack of it tend to have serious negative

consequences on marketing activities particularly, on the pricing dimension of the

product and consumers always pay the price of any increase arising from poor

infrastructure.

Since the main objective of this study is to evaluate the factors influencing strategic

marketing on the performance of manufacturing companies in Nigeria with a view to

examining the extent of the relationships between strategic marketing and company

performance, the following argument that is presented will subsequently lead to the

development of our hypothesis.

Kotler (1991) is of the view that implementation of sound marketing mix policies and

strategies significantly impacts on company performance. Additionally, Noble, Sinha and

Kumar (2002) argue that companies that implement sound marketing strategies build an

advantage with high barriers for competitors to match while Balogun and Johnson (2004)

found that there exists sufficient evidence of significant relationship between strategic

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marketing and company performance as organizational performance is mainly dependent

on the successful implementation of strategies. It is in view of this we hypothesize that:



Adequacy of funds has also been shown to have significant impact on strategic marketing

activities of manufacturing companies as it has relationship with competitive advantage

and subsequently company performance (Tuominen, 2003) and financial performance

(Hooley & Greenley, 2005). It is therefore hypothesized that:



Hunt and Morgan (1995) argue that “the attitude of marketing executives as it relates to

ethical conduct in marketing practice may have a significant impact on the performance

of so many companies either positively or negatively as ethical behaviour could translate

into a position of competitive advantage while unethical conduct could result to decline

in patronage and subsequently poor performance. Therefore, the hypothesis is, thus,

developed as:



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Day (1994) also argues that there is a significant relationship between environmental

uncertainties and the implementation of strategic marketing policies, the mastery of the

general environment and continuous environmental scanning and analysis will help

pinpoint at marketing opportunities and threats (Kotler, 1999). Additionally,

Tuominen (2003) identified positive link between environmental scanning and analysis

and performance superiority. Also, Vassinen (2006) found significant relationships for

example between environmental factors and overall firm performance. These lead us to

hypothesize that:



Moreover, according to Papavassiliou & Stathakopoulus (1997) availability of basic

infrastructure can have a significant impact on strategic marketing activities of

manufacturing companies as basic infrastructure was found to have enhanced the

implementation of marketing strategies and helped toward accelerated growth and

developmental stages of marketing. Tuominen (2003) empirically verified statistical

significant relationship between availability of adequate infrastructure and performance

of manufacturing companies. We thus come to hypothesize that:



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All the hypotheses developed above, will help us to test the significant relationships on

the various factors influencing the implementation of strategic marketing among

manufacturing companies with a view to identifying those factors that will lead to

marketing strategy implementation success and subsequently company performance.

1.6 Significance of the Study

This study is undertaken to evaluate the factors influencing strategic marketing on the

performance of manufacturing companies in Nigeria. It helps to provide the relationship

between strategic marketing and company performance and enhance the understanding of

the factors leading to marketing strategy implementation success. The study helps in

developing good marketing strategy models that will guide Nigerian manufacturing

companies toward effective performance. It has also contributed significantly to the

existing knowledge of strategic marketing literature. It is hoped that, it will enhance the

national and global competitiveness of Nigerian manufacturing companies.

Consequently, the study will be of immense benefit to:

1. Managers of manufacturing companies; as it will elicit better understanding of

performance measurement in marketing strategy implementation, planning and

control effort which will also help to draw the attention of management on the

need to consider some qualitative variables in measuring firm performance.

2. Students who will use it as a reference material and in a way contribute to their

existing knowledge in the area of marketing strategy implementation.

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3. Institutions where it would help in their understanding of strategic issues in

marketing thus bring about growth and development and the attainment of

institutional goals more effectively and efficiently.

4. Consultants; It will provide them with up-to-date knowledge of strategic

marketing implementation issues that would add value to their various fields of

human endeavour and help them in their marketing expertise and skills.

5. Government Agencies would use it as a documentary guide in policy formulation

and the implementation of sound marketing policies by government at all levels.

6. Researchers might use it as a reference material in conducting various research

and development (R&D) efforts resulting in meaningful findings or major

breakthroughs in the area of marketing strategy implementation.

Finally, the findings of the study will serve as another stimulating document for further

studies in the field of strategic marketing.

1.7 Scope of the Study

This thesis is concerned with the evaluation of factors influencing strategic marketing on

the performance of manufacturing companies in the Nigeria manufacturing sub-sector.

The study evaluated the internal and external environmental factors that influence

strategic marketing and its effect on company performance. The study focused on

strategic marketing activities as relates to the four internal marketing variables of the

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marketing mix namely product, price, place and promotion, as well as the external

elements. This is to allow for thorough and meaningful evaluations aimed at contributing

to existing body of knowledge.

In view of the large number of manufacturing companies in Nigeria, the study focuses

only on the companies listed on the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) as at December

2011. This is to ensure accuracy and reliability of data. A time period under review of 5

years, from 2006 to 2011, was chosen because it is believed that the scope provided

enough insight into the present state of the implementation of strategic marketing by most

manufacturing companies in Nigeria. This is in view of the on-going reform agenda of

the Federal Government as encapsulated in the NEEDS (2003) document.

1.8 Limitations of the Study

The research, much as it tried in scope and methodology to address substantially the

objectives of the study, quite a number of inhibitions were encountered which stood in

the way of realizing the ultimate aim of the study. The major limitations identified were

as follows:

(a) The inability of the surveyed manufacturing companies to provide the required

data as enunciated in the objectives of the study. This is true as some of the

manufacturing companies were not forthcoming to the disclosure of information

related to the new product development process and promotional strategies. This

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made it very difficult for the researcher to really assess their implementation

strategies.

(b) Responses by most of the oil companies were very poor to say the least. As at the

time of the compilation of this study, for instance, only three (3) out of the six (6)

surveyed oil companies responded to the questionnaires, two months after being

administered on them.

(c) The incessant changes in the number of listed companies on the Nigerian stock

exchange within the period of the study are another constraint to the study. For

instance, at a particular period, eight (8) listed companies were dropped and

another new eight (8) were added to the list of quoted companies. This makes the

data collection exercise more herculean.

(d) Administrative bottlenecks often identified mostly with the Nigerian

manufacturing sector reared their ugly heads in some of the surveyed companies.

This resulted in delays in making data available, and even when the data were

made available, at times, they arrived too late to be useful. This is true of some

companies in the textiles and food & beverages sub-sector that submitted their

completed questionnaires after the data analysis.

(e) Time constraint and busy schedule of key marketing executives and

intermediaries during the period of the interviews and focus group discussions

was considered as a hindering element to increase the sample size.

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(f) Another insurmountable problem in the conduct of the study is the difficulty in

understanding some of the analytical tools and necessary fit which confines the

study to only the use of the analyzed tools in the study.

Despite these limitations, due care was taken not to sacrifice quality and in-depth analysis

of this study.

1.9 Definitions of Key Terms

Benchmarking: Is a process whereby organizations pursue enhanced performance by

learning from the successful practices of others, either from other parts of the same

organization, competitors or organizations operating in different business environments

Company Performance: It is a set of metrics used to quantify both the efficiency and

effectiveness of actions.

Competitive Advantage: Means achieving a bigger gap than your competitors between

the value your customers see in your product and the costs you incur in providing that

product.

Cronbach’s Alpha: Is a coefficient of reliability. It is commonly used as a measure of

the internal consistency or reliability of a psychometric test score for a sample of

examinees.

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Environmental Uncertainties: Consequences of external environmental changes on the

organization. It is the individual’s perceived ability to predict an organizations

environment accurately because of a lack of information or an inability to discriminate

between relevant and irrelevant data.

Infrastructure: This is what lies between companies and markets, and between

consumers and essential services. It incorporates the core network utilities like transport,

energy, water and communications. It is a public goods and services that act as a lever for

economic activity.

Innovation Orientation: Is the act through which new ideas are successfully introduced

to the market. Firms that possess high innovation orientation differentiate themselves

from other companies.

Manufacturers: Are inventors, innovators, global supply chain managers and service

providers who turn ideas into products and services.

Manufacturing Firms: This is a constitution of business entities involved in the

transformation of raw materials into finished products. They performed business

activities such as research and development, design, production, logistics and services

with the overall objective of profit maximization.

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Market Orientation: is the systematic gathering of information on customers and

competitors, both present and potential. It has to do with analysis of the information for

the purpose of developing market knowledge, and using the knowledge to guide strategy

recognition, understanding, creation, selection, implementation and modification.

Marketing: Is an organizational function and a set of processes for creating,

communicating, and delivering value to customers and for managing customer

relationships in ways that benefit the organization and its stakeholders.

Marketing Intermediaries: This is individual or firm (such as an agent, distributor,

wholesaler, and retailer) that links producers to other intermediaries or the ultimate buyer.

Marketing Mix: It is the term used to describe the combination of the four inputs that

constitute the core of a company’s marketing system i.e., Product, Price, Place and

Promotion.

Performance: Result from success or market position achieved. It can be determined in

various ways. It might stand for financial performance, market performance, customer

performance or overall company performance.

Pilot Testing: This helps to test the methodology of a research and its underlying

modeling, and to propose a preliminary set of indicators. It helps in ensuring reliability

and validity check through pre-testing of the questionnaire before final administration.

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Strategy: Is a plan aimed at achieving a particular purpose, most often “winning”. The

source of this term is strictly military - all about leading human & other resources to win

battles and wars. In marketing, it is widely used to describe a seemingly endless number of


Strategic Marketing: It is a unified, comprehensive and integrated marketing plan

designed to assure that the basic objective of the enterprise are achieved.

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CHAPTER TWO

LITERATURE REVIEW AND CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK

2.1 Conceptual Framework

This chapter deals with the review of literature on the concept of strategic marketing and

its implementation. It also dwells on the various theories postulated by scholars. The

section discusses framework of marketing with emphasis on understanding the various

definitions of marketing. It further dwells on the concepts of strategic marketing where

strategy, kinds of strategy, levels of strategy, and strategic marketing are discussed

including the major elements of the marketing mix i.e. product, price, place/distribution

and promotion, as well as theoretical framework for the study.

As the intention of the study is to test and potentially confirm certain theory-basing

causal relationships between company’s marketing strategies and company performance,

fairly detailed literature review is conducted on certain performance-related factors in the

research field of strategic marketing. Due to the relatively young field of research in

strategic marketing, the literature section contains quite a significant amount of material

of more traditional frameworks, such as Porter’s (1980) generic competitive strategies

and resource-based view (RBV) of the firm. The review section aims at arriving at a

framework between concept of strategic marketing and other related and more

established concepts bordering on the implementation of strategic marketing among


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2.2 Concepts of Marketing

Marketing is a dynamic and challenging activity that requires an understanding of both its

principles and strategies. Marketing practitioners must possess the requisite skills and the

practical experience of implementing marketing ideas, processes and techniques in the

market place. However, the importance of a good introduction to the field is imperative.

2.2.1 Meaning of Marketing

Marketing is one of the terms in academia that does not have a universally accepted

definition. It has been given different interpretations. To a layman, marketing is just

about buying and selling or selling and promoting (Akpan, 2003).

Hunt (2002) defined marketing ‘as the behavioral Science that needs to explain exchange

relationships’, he went further to explain that the study of marketing needs to understand

the behavior of buyers directed at consummation of exchange, the institutional

framework directed at facilitating exchange, and it’s associated consequences on Society.

Kotler (1991) defined Marketing as a social and managerial process by which individuals

and groups obtain what they need and want through creating and exchanging products

and value with others. This definition contain some vital importance such as needs, want

and demands, products, value and satisfaction, exchange markets.

Drucker (1973) defined Marketing as the whole business seen from the point of view of

its final result, customer satisfaction.

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However, marketing is everything a company does to acquire customers and maintain a

relationship with them. Even the small tasks like writing thank-you letters, playing golf

with a prospective client, returning calls promptly and meeting with a past client for

coffee can be thought of as marketing. The ultimate goal of marketing is to match a

company's products and services to the people who need and want them, thereby ensuring

profitability (Kotler, 1999)

The term was first conceptualized in 1935 when the then newly established American

Marketing Association (AMA) asserted that, Marketing consists of those activities

involved in the flow of goods and services from the point of production to the point of

consumption (AMA, 1935:3). The association’s first amended definition from 1937 saw

marketing as the performance of business activities that direct the flow of goods and

services from producers to consumers. A revision of this in 1985 changed this to the

process of planning and executing the conception, pricing, promotion, and distribution of

ideas, goods and services to create exchanges that satisfy individual and organizational

objectives (AMA, 1937).

There exist as many definitions as contributed by numerous scholars on the subject but

the definitions commonly referred to are those of the American Marketing Association

(AMA). The AMA (2004) has since amended its definition with the most recent version

rendered thus:

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“Marketing is an organizational function and a set of processes for creating,

communicating, and delivering value to customers and for managing customer

relationships in ways that benefit the organization and its stakeholders (AMA, 2004:2).”

What is clear from the above definition is that, the new definition of marketing by the

American Marketing Association ignores the moral responsibility of marketing for the

socio-ecological conditions of our world.

Going by the above contributions on the various definitions of marketing, it can

succinctly be said that marketing is simply the job of creating satisfaction or aggressive

planning ability between competitors to outwit one another all in an effort to deliver

satisfaction more effectively and efficiently. To this end, this discussion will dwell

further on an examination of the various marketing mix elements which is the bedrock of

marketing and subsequently the concept of strategic marketing which is the core subject

of discussion.

2.2.2 Marketing Mix

Marketing mix is considered the most famous phrase used in marketing which has been

described as the element of marketing tactics (Kotler, 1991). It is the term used to describe

the combination of the four inputs that constitute the core of a company’s marketing

system i.e., Product, Price, Place and Promotion. Some authors have attempted to extend

its usefulness by proposing a seven P’s, such as people, process and physical evidence

(Kotler, 1999).

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Marketing mix is defined as a set of controllable tactical marketing tools that the firm

blends to produce the response it wants in the target market. It is also described as the

combination of promotion, product, place (distribution channels) and prices you choose

for your business including both short term and long term strategies in the marketing mix

which can make for a profitable business. They are the parameters that the marketing

manager can control. All marketing decisions are generally anchored on or fall into these

four controllable categories, the goal is to make decision that center the 4P’s on the

customers in the target market in order to create perceived value and generate a positive

response. The four place categories consist of everything the firm can do to influence the

demand for its product. This is discussed below:

2.2.2.1 Product

A product is anything offered for attention, acquisition, use or consumption that might

satisfy a want or need. Products can be physical objects, service, persons, organizations

and ideas. Nwokoye (1981) defined a product as a bundle of physical and psychological

satisfaction that the buyer receives from a purchase. This includes not only the tangible

object, but also such supportive elements as ‘packaging, convenience of purchase, post-

sale service and others that buyers value. Stanton (1964) defined product as a set of

tangible and intangible attributes including packaging, colour test, price, manufacturer’s

prestige, retailer’s prestige, as well as manufacturers’ and retailer services which the

buyer may accept as offering wants satisfaction.

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2.2.2.2 Price

According to Marsh (1988:87), “pricing is a very important element in the marketing mix

for it is the only one which produces revenue. All the other parts of the marketing mix are

cost-driven”. Price is the term being used to describe money value of an item; it is the

term expressed in any monetary medium whereby the exchange occurs. Kurtz and Clow

(1998:240) suggested that, “consumers often use price as one of the inputs forming

expectations when making purchase decisions”, while Kotler (1991) has argued that

pricing decisions tremendously impact on customers and play a significant role in

building an image for the company. Furthermore, Jobber (1998) pointed out that pricing

is the most flexible element of the marketing mix in that pricing decisions can be

implemented relatively quickly and at a low cost.

The above arguments reveal a general consensus in the literature regarding the

importance of pricing for every firm’s profitability and relationships with its customers.

This significance notwithstanding, “pricing is often a perplexing issue for practitioners

and researchers alike. In Nigeria today, price remains one of the least researched and

mastered areas of marketing, marketers have only recently begun to focus on effective

pricing (Akpan, 2003). Although the need for effective pricing is frequently voiced at

conference sessions an overview of specific topics of potential interest has yet to be

developed” (Hoffman et al., 2002:105).

The lack of academic interest in the field of pricing is also depicted on the limited

empirical studies that have been conducted on this issue, which is even more evident in

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the case of services. According to Berry and Yadav (1996: 42) “little research exists on

the pricing and few people understand the special challenges involved”.

Generally, setting price for a new product always presents peculiar problems to

marketers, the initial price quoted for an item may determine whether the product will

eventually be accepted or rejected in the market place. It may also affect the amount of

competition that will emerge. Applying an appropriate pricing strategy is the key to

successful competitive advantage; this should be achieved bearing in mind, the sensitivity

of customers, competitor’s price and the cost of production. A price sensitive buyer can

react negatively to a high price.

Questionable pricing practices are not unheard of, however. For example, pricing in the

travel industry is so complicated that even professional travel agents can’t always figure

out the true price customers have to pay.

Moreover, cement manufacturing companies in Nigeria have been accused of advertising

attractive low prices that were nearly impossible for any customer to take advantage of

because there were so many restrictions. A more ethical approach might be to establish

and advertise the prices that most people will actually end up paying.

A study (Akpan, 2003) revealed that some Nigerian manufacturers use price to exploit

and business regulatory bodies in Nigeria such as the Consumer Protection Council

(CPC), National Agency for Food, Drug, Administration and Control NAFDAC and

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Standards Organization of Nigeria (SON) are not doing enough to curtail the spate of un-

ethical marketing practices related to pricing which has eaten deep into the society (Onu,

2000).

2.2.2.3 Place

Place is an element of the marketing mix which deals with how manufacturers distribute

products to the consumers. The movement of goods and services from the manufacturer

to the consumer is known as distribution. Distribution decisions are pretty difficult in

domestic marketing and even more complicated in international marketing. Kotler and

Keller (2006:103) recognized that physical distribution management (PDM) is a critical

area of overall marketing management involving major decision issues in the movement

of goods and services from one location to the other.

The major decision issues involved in physical distribution activities include inventory

control, material handling, order processing, transportation and storage function. These

decisions will of course be influenced by several important variables including

customer’s buying patterns and delivery expectations, cost of building and operating

warehouses, location of markets and factories, transportation cost etc. It is unfortunate

that some marketers in Nigeria do not conduct the above major distribution activities

properly resulting to wastages and delay in delivery and general ineffectiveness which

lead to total failure in some organizations (Onu, 2000).

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2.2.2.4 Promotion

Promotion is one of the major forms of marketing communications, which include

advertising, personal selling, sales promotion, and public relations (Kotler, 1991). These

are therefore referred to as the promotional mix. Most scholars have used different words

at different times to connote promotion. Kotler (1986) use the term “communication mix”

rather than promotional mix, in the same context, while (Stanton, 1964) use the term

“communications” to represent company-wide communications rather than just

marketing communications.

Jobber (1998) defines promotion as “a word used to describe the whole collection of

methods by which the task of information and persuasion may be carried out. It is any

effort whose function is to inform or persuade customers about the existence of a product

or services with a view to induce them either to start or continue buying the product or

services.

Promotion in marketing is all those activities that are geared towards informing a

prospective consumer of the availability, necessity, durability, comfortability, and

economic incentives of a product, in order to persuade such consumer to buy. It is simply

an exercise in information, persuasion and communication (Schewe, 1987).

Scholars in Nigeria (Akpan, 2003 & Nwakoye, 1981) were of the opinion that,

manufacturers in Nigeria should always develop the right product, apply the right price

and adopt the most effective distribution channel, as well as the most effective

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promotional plans to ensure success. How can these be achieved? These could be

achieved through the understanding and implementation of the concept of strategic

marketing as discussed below:

2.3 Concepts of Strategic Marketing

2.3.1 Strategy

It is commonly argued that the first strategist of all-time was Sun Tzu, Chinese General

who lived in the fourth century B.C (McNeilly, 2001). He emphasized the need for far-

sightedness and good planning. Sun Tzu also put importance on knowing both your

enemy and yourself, and sensitively reacting to changing conditions (Chen, 1994). Since

the days of Sun Tzu, many business-related phenomena have gone through significant

changes but the concept of strategy has remained essentially the same.

The term ‘strategy’ is a plan aimed at achieving a particular purpose. It is used in many

military formations across the world for planning and acquisition of the right skills to

gain advantage in a war or other military situations. In marketing, it is widely used to

describe a seemingly endless number of marketing activities. Today, everything in

business seems to be strategy. There are product strategy, strategic pricing, strategic

promotion, strategic distribution and strategic market penetration. In recent years, the

appellation is appended to nearly every marketing action in order to make the ordinary

sound modern and competitively inspired (Schnaars, 1998:322).

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Long-term planning is always at the core, and a difference is either made to the level of

decision-making – top management for strategy – or to the level of detail involved, as a

difference to tactics. Schendel (1995) quoted in Thomas and Dunkerly (1999:122)

develops Drucker’s distinction of “doing things right” and “doing the right things” to

distinguish between operations management and strategic management respectively

(Drucker, 1973). Strategic management means creating a strategy to ensure future

viability of the firm; it involves the determination of the basic long-term goals and

objectives of an enterprise, and adoption of courses of action and the allocation of

resources necessary for carrying out these goals (Chandler 1962:411). This definition of

strategy as an organizational process has remained dominant to this day.

Wright and Pringle (1992) define strategy as Top management’s plans to attain outcomes

consistent with the organization’s missions and goals. To highlight the difference

between strategic and operational management, Drucker (1966) proclaimed good

strategic performance (effectiveness) as “doing the right things” and good operational

performance (efficiency) as “doing things right”. As for concept of marketing, there are

numerous definitions available for strategy in different publications. One can therefore

choose which of several strategic points of view best suits the situation at hand.

However, Mintzberg, Lampel and Ahistrand (1998) offer the perspective of some schools

of thought that see strategy as a ploy or maneuvers for outwitting competition. For the

purpose of this study, the term will cover both the traditional definitions based on long-

range plans and their fulfillment.

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2.3.2 Types of Strategies

Porter (1985) classifies marketing strategies into three different types as discussed below:

2.3.2.1 Cost leadership strategy: When the competitive advantage of firm lies in a lower

cost of products or services relative to what the competitors have to offer, it is termed as

cost leadership. Cost leadership offers a margin of flexibility to the firm to lower price if

the competition becomes stiff and yet earn more or less the same level of profit. The firm

using cost leadership strategy outperforms its competitors by offering products or

services at a lower cost than they can. Customers prefer a lower cost products particularly

if it offers the same utility to them, as the comparable products available in the market

have to offer

.

2.3.2.2 Differentiation strategy: Differentiated strategy is adopted when the competitive

advantage of a firm lies in special features incorporated into the product/services.

Customers prefer differentiated product/services when it offers them a utility that they

value, and are willing to pay more for getting such a utility. A differentiated product

stands apart in the market and is distinguishable by the customers for its special features

and attributes.

2.3.2.3 Focus strategy: Focus strategies essentially rely on either cost leadership or

differentiation but cater to narrow segments of the total market. In terms of the market,

therefore, focus strategies are niche strategies. The more commonly used - bases for

identifying customer groups are the demographic characteristics, geographic

31

segmentation or lifestyle. For the identified market segment a focused firm uses either

the cost leadership or differentiation strategy.

2.3.3 Levels of Strategy

Just like organizational goals, strategy varies from level to level. Organizations can

develop corporate strategy, business strategy and functional strategy (Hoffman e tal,

2002).

2.3.3.1 Corporate strategy is the course charted for the total organization it attempts to

specify, what set of businesses the organization intends to be in (Griffin, 1984). From the

foregoing explanation, corporate strategy is primarily concerned with the scope and

resource development components of strategy. Corporate level strategies include the

overall strategies of growth, stability, turnaround and retrenchment, or combination of

factors. This strategy is based on providing the best quality service that will be focused

on competitive advantage and synergy.

2.3.3.2 Business strategy usually occurs at the business unit or product level, and it

emphasizes improvement of the competitive position of a corporation’s products or

services in the specific industry or market segment served by that business unit. Business

strategies may fit within the two overall categories of competitive or cooperative

strategies.

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2.3.3.3 Functional strategy is a strategy developed for a major functional area such as

marketing, finance or production. It is the approach taken by a functional area to achieve

corporate and business unit objectives and strategies by maximizing resource

productivity. It is concerned with developing and nurturing a distinctive competence to

provide a company or business unit with a competitive advantage.

2.3.4 Strategic Marketing

The concept of strategic marketing is used in various ways. It is a deeply customer-

oriented concept focusing on the top management’s long-term vision for competitive

advantage through product innovation, other functions being fully subservient to this

process (Vassinen, 2006). Ansoff (1965) explains the concept of strategic marketing as

the common thread among organization’s activities and product-market that defines the

essential nature of business that the organization was or planned to be in future. He

stressed the commonality of approach that exists in diverse organizational activities

including the products and markets that defines the current and planned nature of

business.

Thompson (1995) defined strategic marketing precisely as: “A unified, comprehensive

and integrated marketing plan designed to assure that the basic objective of the enterprise

are achieved”. The three adjectives that Thompson used to define a plan made the

definition quite adequate. ‘Unified’ means that the plan joins all the parts of an enterprise

together; ‘comprehensive’ means it covers all the major aspects of the enterprise, and

‘integrated’ means that all parts of the marketing plans are compatible with each other for

33

effective performance. For a marketing strategy to be successful, organizations need to

develop an effective process as discussed below.

2.3.5 Marketing Strategy Development Process

Authors like Simon and Terry (1997), Jauch and Glueck (1998) and Kazim (2002) have

outlined similar marketing strategy processes.

Establishment of

strategic intent Formation of

strategies Implementation

of strategies Strategic

evaluation

Strategic Control

Figure 1: Marketing Strategy Development Process (Kazim, 2002).

The five strategic marketing processes (Figure 1) include: (1) Establishing the hierarchy

of strategic intent; this consists of creating and communicating a vision, designing a

vision statement, defining the business and setting the objectives; (2) Formulation of

strategies; this involves performing environmental appraisal, doing organizational

appraisal, considering corporate – level strategies, considering business-level strategies,

undertaking strategic analysis, exercising strategic choice, formulating strategies,

preparing a strategic plan; (3) Implementation of strategies; this requires activating

strategies, designing structures and system, managing behavioral implementation,

managing functional Implementation, operationalising strategies; (4) Performing strategic

evaluation; this consists of performing strategic evaluation of entire company effort; (5)

Control; this involve exercising strategies control and reformulating strategies.

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2.3.6 Marketing Strategy Implementation and Control

In recent years organizations have sought to create greater organizational flexibility in

responding to environmental turbulence by moving away from hierarchical structures to

more modular forms (Schilling& Steensma, 2001; Balogun & Johnson, 2004).

Responsibility, resources and power in firms have been the subjects of decentralization

and delivering. Given an intensifying competitive environment, it is regularly asserted,

that the survival of a firm depends largely on the successful implementation of marketing

strategies (Bonoma, 1988; Chebat, 1999; Noble, 1999).

Historically, numerous researchers in strategic marketing, bestowed great significance to

the strategic formulation process and considered strategy implementation as a by-product

or invariable consequence of planning (Day & Wensley, 1983; Wind & Robertson,

1983). Fortunately, insights in this area have been made recently which tamper our

knowledge of developing marketing strategy with the reality of executing that which is

crafted (Varadarajan et al., 2001; Piercy, 2002; Miller et al., 2004; Noble, 1999; Noble &

Mokwa, 1999; Homburg et al., 2004; Olson et al., 2005; Chimhanzi & Morgan, 2005; Qi,

2005).

However, strategy implementation is both a multifaceted and complex organizational

process, it is only by taking a broad view that a wide span of potentially valuable insights

is generated. Research emphasizing strategy implementation is classified by numerous

researchers who conducted several studies proposing structural views as important

35

facilitators for marketing strategy implementation success (Miles & Snow, 1978; Porter,

1980; Drazin & Howard, 1984; Bourgeois & Brodwin, 1984)

Beyond the preoccupation of many authors with firm structure, a second wave of

investigations advocated interpersonal processes and issues as crucial to any marketing

strategy implementation effort (Wooldridge & Floyd, 1989; Westley, 1990; Noble &

Mokwa, 1999). Conflicting empirical results founded upon contrasting theoretical

premises indicate that marketing strategy implementation is a complex phenomenon. In

response, generalizations have been advanced in the form of encouraging early

involvement in the strategy process by firm members (Hambrick & Cannella, 1989); fluid

processes for adaptation and adjustment (Drazin & Howard, 1984); and, leadership style

and structure (Bourgeois & Brodwin, 1984).

It is not surprising therefore that marketing strategy implementation is a topic of great

interest to both managers and strategy researchers. Indeed, Noble and Mokwa (1999)

affirm that an integrative view encompassing both structural and interpersonal views can

enhance our understanding of the factors leading to marketing strategy implementation

success. Despite the recent interest in marketing strategy implementation research, there

is a significant need for more detailed and comprehensive models related to marketing

strategy implementation (Noble, 1999).

It is clearly apparent that a current challenge for marketing management lies in

implementing marketing strategy rather than formulating it, in creating and sustaining a

36

climate within the firm that motivates employees in their implementation role (Dobni,

2003). Not all firms implement their marketing strategies in the same manner;

nevertheless, research investigating the differing styles of implementation is scarce. Nutt

(1995) utilizes Jungian theory (Jung, 1923) for his framework of implementation style;

however, this is very much an analysis of the psychological style of individuals within

the firm. More recently, Parsa (1999) utilized Bourgeois and Brodwin’s (1984)

classification of strategy implementation types.

Various authors have described implementation theories in different perspectives.

According to Kazim (2002), structural implementation deals with a major aspect of

implementation, that is, the organization structure. A whole branch of knowledge which

spans several disciplines is related to the study of organizations. Structural

implementation explains the ethical inter-relationship that exists between strategy and

structure.

An organization structure is the way in which the task and sub-tasks required to

implement a strategy are arranged. The diagrammatical representation of structure could

be an organization chart but a chart shows only the ‘skeleton’. The ‘flesh’ and ‘blood’

that bring to life and organization are the several mechanisms that support the structure.

All these cannot be depicted on a chart. But a strategist has to grapple with complexities

of creating the structure, making it work, redesigning when required, and implementing

changes that will keep the structure relevant to the needs of the strategies that have to be

implemented.

37

Kazim (2002) in an attempt to explain structural mechanism stated that implementation

of strategies would require the performance of tasks. Some of those tasks activating

strategies are related to the formulation and implementation of programmes and projects.

Having laid the foundations of an organization, the strategist would have to devote their

attention to the tasks that would have to be performed on a continuing basis for the

implementations of strategies.

Agbonifoh and Iyayi (1999) identifies the process to involve (1) Defining the major tasks

required to implement a strategy; (2) Grouping tasks on the basis of common skills

requirements; (3) Subdivision of responsibilities and delegation of authority to perform

tasks; (4) Coordination of divided responsibilities; (5) Design and administration of the

information system; (6) Design and administration of the control system; (7) Design and

administration of the appraising system; (8) Design and administration of the motivation

system; (9) Design and administration of the development system; (10) Design and

administration of the planning system. The other major aspects of implementation relate

to the leadership style, corporate culture and other related issues.

2.3.7 Strategy Implementation Framework

Implementation involves a number of interrelated choices and activities. The resources of

the enterprise must be allocated to reinforce choice, and the organization of the SBUs and

in key leadership positions to see that the strategy will work. The functional strategies

and short and medium range policies must be developed such that they are consistent

with the strategic choice. And some systems are needed to link strategies with plans for

38

implementation; otherwise, the strategy that has been chosen will never see the light of

the day. Success in business strategy is a function of sound implementation framework.

Hill and Jones (1988), Jauch and Glueck (1998) believe that implementation is necessary

to spell out more precisely how the strategic choice will come to be. Structural

administrative mechanisms which are compatible and workable need to be established to

reinforce the strategic direction chosen and provide guides for action. They went further

to argue that a good strategy without effective implementation is not likely to succeed.

On the other hand, Loewen (1997) identified seven- s frame work which helps in closing

the gap between ideal and expected outcomes of strategic decision making. The seven- s

frame work which help in the implementation process includes; (1) Strategy; (2)

Structure; (3) Systems; (4) Style; (5) Staff; (6) Shared Values (or super-ordinate goals)

and (7) Skills.

2.3.8 Marketing Strategy Implementation Types

At the firm level, extant research has shown that the effective relationship between

strategy and structure is a necessary precondition for the successful implementation of

new business strategies (Drazin & Howard, 1984; Olson et al., 2005; Miller et al., 2004).

In addition, a match between appropriate administrative mechanisms and strategy has

been found to reduce uncertainty within the firm and increase effectiveness in marketing

strategy implementation (Govindarajan, 1988).

39

The relevant literature has advocated factors that influence the implementation of

strategic marketing, for example; organizational structure (Miles & Snow, 1978; Drazin

& Howard, 1984); control mechanisms (Daft & Mackintosh, 1984; Jaworski et al, 1993);

strategic consensus (Wooldridge & Floyd, 1989; Floyd & Wooldridge, 2000); leadership

(Gupta & Govindarajan, 1984; Nutt, 1986); and communication (Hambrick & Cannella,

1989; Workman, 1993; Noble, 1999; Noble & Mokwa, 1999).

However, researches (Mintzberg (1979, 1993) have not provided answer as to whether

the “style” of marketing strategy implementation undertaken has any impact on the

effectiveness of the implementation effort. Mintzberg (1993) found that firms differ in

terms of their structure and that the structure reflects on the firm’s situation and

strategies. The structure of a firm influences the flow of information and the context and

nature of interpersonal interaction within it. Structure also channels collaboration,

prescribes means of communication and co-ordination as well as allocating power and

responsibility (Miller, 1987).

Traditionally, firms have addressed these basic needs for coordination and cooperation by

hierarchical configurations (Grant, 2002) with centralized decision-making, strict

adherence to formally prescribed rules and procedures and carefully constructed roles and

relationships. Others, due to the unpopularity of bureaucracy in large firms, started a

movement toward de-layering hierarchies (Homburg et al., 2004).

40

Downsizing has resulted in the roles of employees altering dramatically as structure is re-

engineered (Balogun, 2003; Thomas & Dunkerley, 1999). These firms are characterized

by decentralized decision-making, small senior marketing executive teams and an

emphasis on horizontal rather than vertical communication (Webster, 1992). With firms

evolving in terms of structure it follows that the style of marketing strategy

implementation will differ depending on the style of organization and management that

exists in the firm. In general terms, Nutt (1976, 1986, & 1995) and Gupta and

Govindarajan (1984) find that types of leadership style can play a critical role in

overcoming barriers to implementation and proposed an improvisational approach to

implementing strategic change in an organization.

In contrast, Galbraith and Schendel (1983) model is comprehensive, is based on specific

theoretical assumptions and has been used by authors such as Bourgeois and Brodwin

(1984) and Parsa (1999). To refute the traditional approach to marketing strategy

implementation as simply an adjunct to the strategy formulation phase of the strategy

process. Rather, they contend that marketing strategy implementation evolves either from

a process of winning group commitment through a coalitional form of decision-making,

or as a result of complete coalitional involvement of implementation staff through a

strong corporate culture.

Co-evolutionary theory (Galbraith & Schendel, 1983) indicates that as firms grow and

evolve from small to larger and multidivisional organizations, the strategy

implementation methods also evolve simultaneously. The various strategy

41

implementation models described by Bourgeois and Brodwin (1984) are meant to meet

the changing needs of firms as they evolve through various stages of the organizational

life cycle (Parsa, 1999). In contrast to the earlier descriptive models, this model is more

prescriptive with an, albeit limited, empirical basis. Our research highlights three of

Bourgeois and Brodwin’s (1984) classifications of strategy implementation styles: (1)

Change (2) Collaborative, and (3) Cultural.

2.3.8.1 Change Model

This hierarchical model emphasizes how organizational structure, incentive,

compensation, and control systems can be used to facilitate the implementation of

marketing strategy. Here the Senior Marketing Executive Team (SMET) acts as an

architect and uses behavioural science techniques to manage the firm to meet the needs of

the marketing strategy. The change model can be identified through the changing of

structure and staff to convey the firm’s new priorities; alternating planning, performance

measurement, incentive compensation systems; and using cultural adaptation techniques

to introduce system changes. The senior managers not only pass the marketing strategy to

their subordinates, but also take part in the implementation phase. However, the change

model has its limitations under the circumstances of inaccurate information, disincentives

against objectivity by managers, and motivational problems (Bourgeois and Brodwin,

1984).

According to this model, there is a greater concordance between the “thinkers” (those

employees exhibiting cerebral tendencies, preferring intellectual judgment and reasoning

42

to solve organizational problems) and “doers” (those employees manifesting the practical

ability to make things happen and exhibit intra-premarital flair). An appreciation of the

political nature of the firm is essential in implementing desired strategies. The marketing

strategy content is considered as an evolving process, rather than as a set of

predetermined plans. The goals of the firm remain predominantly economic but are

adjusted to reflect specific strengths and weaknesses of the firm.

2.3.8.2 Collaborative Model

This alternative model focuses on group decision-making at a senior management level

and involves SMETs in the strategy formulation process. In this way it expects a firm to

have a formalized strategic planning system. The role of the SMET is to employ group

dynamics and “brainstorming” approaches to involve managers in both strategy

formulation and implementation phases. Here, the SMET plays the role of coordinator,

encouraging and promoting differing ideas and acting as a consensus generator among

various implementation groups (Goold & Campbel, 1987). The SMET is co-coordinator

rather than commander and to achieve desired performance results, teamwork is strongly

encouraged. As a result, the behavioral nature of the firm dominates. The collaborative

model overcomes both the limitations of information inaccuracy and cognitive limits of

the change model (Parsa, 1999), as highlighted previously.

In this model, organizations have both a strong culture and deep-rooted traditions.

Successful implementation requires the cultivation of strong cultural values to meet the

changing organizational needs. The distinction between “thinkers” and “doers” begins to

43

blur but does not totally disappear. This model requires greater emphasis on human

resource practices and as a result, the chosen marketing strategy is a best possible

compromise among the conflicting views of the differing groups. The outcome measures

are not necessarily determined in economic terms but as levels of long-term goal

achievement. However, there are possibilities that the collaborative model is politically

feasible but not economically rational due to the fact that it is the outcome of negotiation

(Bourgeois & Brodwin, 1984).

2.3.8.3 Cultural Model

The cultural model emphasizes a lower level employee participation in both marketing

strategy formulation and implementation thus leading to the disappearance of the

separation of “thinkers” and “doers”. It seeks to implement marketing strategy through

the infusion of corporate culture throughout the firm. The SMET is an initiator, a

visionary, and a communicator of the forward thinking process, thus the marketing

strategy of an organization is stated in terms of broad guidelines and long-term direction.

In this model, the SMET guides the organization by communicating the vision for the

firm while then allowing lower level employees to participate in the marketing strategy

implementation. The model works under the circumstances of decentralized organization,

where there are shared goals between the firm and its participants, and where the firm is

stable and growing. Understanding super-ordinate goals, style, and cultural norms

become essential for the continued success of a firm. The cultural model contradicts and

challenges the basic objectives from the economic perspective of a firm (Parsa, 1999). A

44

“clan-like” organization is expected to prevail, where a powerful culture results in

employees aligning their individual goals and behaviours with those of the firm.

A high level of organizational slack is needed to instill and maintain a cultural model.

This model has several limitations: it assumes well-informed and intelligent participants;

firms with this model tend to drift and lose focus; cost of change in culture often comes at

a high price; increased homogeneity can lead to a loss of diversity, and creativity

consequently (Parsa, 1999).

However, each implementation style differs in the extent of centrality, the extent of group

interaction, the degree of control exerted, the influence of firm culture and the way in

which strategy develops. Bourgeois and Brodwin (1984) postulate that these are not

mutually exclusive forms, and do not indicate that any style is necessarily better than the

other. In spite of this stance, however, we argue that hierarchical structures, similar to

that advocated by the “change” style of implementation (Grant, 2002) are essential for

creating the efficient and flexible co-ordination of marketing strategy implementation.

Undeniably, coordination is critical to the performance of any firm. The specialist

implementation skills possessed by a mid-level marketing manager as an individual do

not fully contribute to the organizational skills base, unless these individuals can

coordinate their efforts. The challenge for any manager is how to coordinate the efforts of

talented employees within a limited time frame and to ensure that the aims and mission of

the intended marketing strategy is clearly understood. Firms can aid this process through

45

rules, directives and routines (Grant, 2002). Coordination deals with only the technical

problem of integrating the actions of mid-level marketing managers within firms.

Cooperation, however, concerns the building mechanisms that link individuals in ways

that permit them to perform given tasks, such as implement the marketing strategy

effectively.

Daft and Mackintosh (1984) explore the role of formal control systems in gaining

cooperation in marketing strategy implementation. Jaworski et al. (1993) showed a strong

correlation between the type of control and coordination system in use and firm

performance, implying that the nature of the control system in an implementation effort is

a critical decision. Despite the negative connotations associated with hierarchical and top-

down approaches to marketing management, it is argued that such structures are essential

for creating conducive marketing strategy implementation environment (Dobni, 2003)

that facilitates coordination and cooperation.

In this way, we argue that for marketing strategies to be implemented efficiently by mid-

level marketing managers the firm must display a degree of hierarchical style and

bureaucratic structure. Power should be located at the apex of the hierarchy and delegated

downward, while the achievement of coordination and cooperation remain paramount

(Wooldridge & Floyd, 1990). Senior marketing executives should seek to direct,

communicate with, and involve, mid-level marketing managers to win their support, a

feeling of ownership for the marketing strategy and their compliance with the roles set for

them. (Piercy, 1991) Indeed, some authors have emphasized the importance of mid-level

46

marketing managers’ perceptions that senior management is doing all it can to facilitate

the marketing strategy implementation process (Wooldridge, 2000; Huy, 2001; Floyd &

Balogun, 2003).

Furthermore, the strategic consensus literature provides a broad range of views of the

value of a collective mind set during implementation efforts (Dooley et al., 2000; Floyd

& Wooldridge, 2000). Nielsen (1983) contends that firms must achieve consensus and

cooperation within the firm in order to gain compliance from managers to successfully

implement marketing strategies. The benefit of a shared understanding and the perception

that the marketing strategy is being coordinated by senior marketing executives

effectively is a development of a commitment among managers and a reduction of

uncertainty in the firm as a whole (Noble, 1999). Shared understanding of the strategy

and a degree of direction from senior management should, in turn, improve strategic

performance and the overall efficiency of the implementation effort.

Moreover, for high levels of coordination and cooperation, how similar senior marketing

executives ideas are with that of the ideas of mid-level marketing managers in terms of

the marketing strategy in question has been recognized as key in the creation of an

atmosphere conducive to effective marketing strategy implementation (Noble & Mokwa,

1999). The importance of “championing” has been discussed in a wide range of literature

(Noble & Mokwa, 1999; Sandy, 1991). Nutt (1986) explains that champions serve many

purposes, including mobilizing firm resources, generating momentum for the marketing

strategy and making sure that the goals of the marketing strategy are clear to all those

47

charged with implementation duties. Also, a charismatic and powerful champion, or

senior marketing executive, is likely to instill a higher level of commitment among lower

level employees towards the marketing strategy (Noble, 1999).

Furthermore, securing the support of the senior marketing executive team is often

essential in marketing strategy implementation (Floyd & Wooldridge, 2000) and some

authors have emphasized the importance of mid-level marketing managers’ perceptions

that senior management is doing all it can to facilitate the implementation process

(Balogun & Johnson, 2004; Thomas & Dunkerley, 1999).

2.3.9 Market Orientation

Understanding competition is central to forming marketing plans and strategy (Proctor,

2000). Chinese general Sun Tzu put importance on knowing both your enemy and

yourself, and sensitively reacting to changing conditions already in the fourth century

B.C. (Chen, 1994). This makes him one of the ancestors of market orientation. Day

(1994) quite well captures the essence of market orientation when defining that “in

market- driven firms the process for gathering, interpreting, and using market information

are more systematic than in other companies.”

To simplify, every company has to choose from two fundamentally different orientation

approaches how to operate. First, it can sell what it can make; in this case emphasis is on

product features, quality and price. Second, it can make what it can sell; now emphasis is

on product benefits and ability to satisfy the needs of customer or solve problems. Where

48

the first alternative, product-orientation, focuses on technical research, the second option,

market-orientation, focuses on identifying new opportunities and applying new

technology to fulfill customer needs. Primary focus in a market-oriented company is put

on customer’s needs and market opportunities (Kotler, 2003 & Neelly et al 1994).

Customer is always right, they say. This leads to a challenge of always finding out what

the customer actually wants.

However, one should also take into account how competitors act and how to

communicate and coordinate the information flow amongst business functions.

Combined, these dimensions contribute to market orientation of a company. Market

orientation is an important part of contemporary marketing thought with significant

amount of research from different perspectives available since the early 1990s.

Consequently, several definitions for this concept have also been offered, making it

carefully considered (Noble, Sinha & Kumar, 2002). Importance of market orientation

has not been questioned in marketing literature; Kotler (2003) even argues that

segmentation, targeting and positioning – which all can be effectively performed in

companies of high market orientation – is the essence of strategic marketing.

Two research groups, Kohli and Jaworski, and Narver and Slater, have especially put

enormous effort in developing the market orientation concept. Kohli and Jaworski (1990)

define market orientation as “organization-wide generation of market intelligence

pertaining to current and future customer needs, dissemination of the intelligence across

49

departments, and organization-wide responsiveness to it”. Put differently: know the

market, share the market information, and act on it. According to Narver and Slater

(1990), rather similarly, market orientation is about customer orientation, competitor

orientation and inter-functional coordination with long-term and profitability focuses.

Narver and Slater (1990) argue that a fundamental benefit of being market oriented is to

be the continuous superior performance for the business. Market orientation cannot be

interpreted to exist in a vacuum from other activities and pressures in the business

(Hooley et al, 2001). On the contrary, it can be evidenced that facing recent changes in

business environment, such as globalization, increased importance of services,

information technology and relationships across company functions and firms, have led

to a situation where most industries have to be more and more market-oriented. Further,

without a doubt, market orientation that stresses the importance of using both customer

and competitor information (Hunt & Morgan, 2001) should clearly be involved when

formulating strategy.

2.3.9.1 Characteristics of Market Orientation

Hunt and Morgan (1995) stress the importance of, in addition to current competitors and

customers, analyzing potential competitors and market niches. This is a good and

necessary supplement to the definition of market orientation since myopic market

perspective may lead to success only in relatively short term. Market orientation, defined

by Hunt and Morgan (1995) is (1) systematic gathering of information on customers and

competitors, both present and potential, (2) systematic analysis of the information for the

50

purpose of developing market knowledge, and (3) systematic use of such a knowledge to

guide strategy recognition, understanding, creation, selection, implementation and

modification.

Some researchers have ended up with somewhat different, but alike, definitions for

market orientation than those described above. For example, Noble, Sinha and Kumar

(2002) extend the definition of market orientation to include brand focus as one of its

dimensions. On the other hand, Ruekert’s (1992) definition for market orientation lacks

the competitor component, being “the degree to which the business unit obtains and uses

information from customers, develops a strategy which will meet customer needs, and

implements that strategy by being responsive to customers’ needs and wants”. Whatever

the definition, market orientation clearly is intangible and cannot be purchased in the

marketplace. It may well be also true that, as Hunt and Morgan (2001) argue, market

orientation is socially complex in its structure, has components that are highly

interconnected, and has mass efficiencies and effectives that grow in strength in time.

This fact leads us naturally to the next ingredients of strategic marketing, namely

marketing assets and capabilities.

2.3.10 Marketing Assets and Capabilities

Hunt and Morgan (2001) argue that the neoclassic theory of perfect competition does not

support the view of resources as a source of competitive advantage when presenting

“factors of production” as homogeneous and perfectly mobile. It can therefore not

explain differences in, for example, innovativeness and quality or offerings among firms.

51

Instead of applying this static theory, there is a need for a more dynamic theory: resource-

based view of the firm and comparative advantage theory of competition is what we

need; they treat resources as both significantly heterogeneous across firms and

imperfectly mobile (Hunt and Morgan, 2001)

According to Fahy and Smithee (1999), an essential element of the RBV of the firm, in

addition to firm’s key resources, is the role of management in converting those resources

into positions of sustainable competitive advantage which ultimately leads to superior

performance in the marketplace. Thus, it is argued that resources have potential to offer a

rather good explanation for the performance differentials among firms.

Marketing resources of a firm consists of marketing assets and marketing capabilities.

Marketing assets is one category of firm’s organizational assets. These include

distribution penetration, marketing expertise, market positioning, market knowledge,

customer loyalty, brand name reputation and relationships with distributors. The three

capability categories potentially providing competitive advantage are determined as

outside-in capabilities, spanning capabilities and inside-out capabilities. The division of

capabilities into the three categories depends on orientation and focus of the defining

processes (Proctor, 2000).

According to Day (1994), these capabilities connect the processes defining other

organizational capabilities to the external environment and enable the business to

compete by anticipating market requirements ahead of competitors thus creating durable

52

relationships with customers and other shareholders. At another end situate inside-out

capabilities. They are highly internally emphasized and unfold what the firm is good at

and capable of doing. Somewhere between these extremes are spanning capabilities that

are needed to integrate the outside-in and inside-out capabilities.

Fahy and Smithee (1999) proposed that business organizations may become more

market-oriented by identifying and building the special capabilities which make market-

driven organizations distinct from one another. He argues that a company usually needs

to possess a few superior, distinctive capabilities to increase probability of outperforming

the competition and, eventually, succeed. For example, the inside-out capability of

manufacturing custom products at low cost, combined with the outside-in capability for

understanding the evolving needs of the customer, can turn out to be an extremely

powerful weapon in competitive markets.

Evidenced by recent changes in the marketplace, such as increased competition in open

markets as a consequence of globalization, customer is stronger than ever. The situation

calls for stronger focus on him or her, the needs he or she may have, and customer

satisfaction fulfillment. Therefore, outside-in marketing capabilities are those growing

most in importance. It may, however, turn out to be very difficult to adopt and sustain

external orientation in practice; usually any minor changes do not shift an orientation of

the firm but wide-ranging cultural changes are necessary (Day, 1994). This is supported

by Treacy and Wiersema (1993) who suggest that the ultimate challenge is to confront

radical change and develop internal consistency with the strategy focus.

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Positioning decisions draw often heavily on the capabilities and assets available (Hooley

et al., 2001). Fahy and Smithee (1999) further emphasize that intangible resources and

capabilities are more difficult to duplicate and provide a more meaningful basis for

marketing strategy development. They also provide a good resource-based model where

they combine and build on several previous studies. They argue that resources are of

unequal importance in achieving sustainable competitive advantages and that

management plays a critical role in the process of achieving them.

2.3.11 Innovation Orientation

Brilliant ideas are always needed to fuel marketing. To distinguish innovation from

invention, Joseph Schumpeter, in 1934 presented a definition, stating that invention is the

creation of something new whereas innovation is the act through which these new ideas

are successfully introduced to the market (Schumpeter, 1934). Constant urge for

innovations is clearly a trait deep inside a firm; for example, Sony has generally been

regarded as a company with high innovation orientation.

Firms that possess high innovation orientation differentiate themselves from other

companies mainly with degree of innovation they build into their offerings (Hooley &

Greenley, 2005). Innovation orientation, as market orientation and marketing capabilities,

is a deeply inherent characteristic of a company; Howard (1983) argues that process

innovation is a prerequisite for successful product innovation. Innovation orientation also

has points of convergence with concepts of first-mover advantages and disadvantages,

introduced and developed by Lieberman and Montgomery (1988; 1998). The link

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between innovation orientation and advantages gained from different entry timing

strategies is illustrated by Hooley and Greenley (2005:99): “Being first to market requires

effective new product development systems and processes, effective R&D skills, and a

degree of creativity in identifying market gaps and opportunities. Because of the complex

interplay of resources required for effective innovation, a position based on this is likely

to enjoy a high degree of defensibility.”

Continuous innovativeness (or, innovation orientation) makes it possible to pioneer, or

entry very early, on the market. Market pioneering, however, is neither necessary nor

sufficient for long-term success and leadership. Additionally, while it has several

potential advantages to get to the market early, also some drawbacks are related to it: for

example, being first in market may turn to costly failure if demand is significantly

smaller than expected. On the other hand, the situation for a late-comer may be difficult if

first-mover has been able to establish strong foothold from the market (Lieberman &

Montgomery, 1988).

It is important to acknowledge that in strategic marketing, customers and companies are

involved in all phases of value cycle: value defining, value developing, value delivering

and value maintaining (Day, 1999). Understanding customer needs and providing

customer satisfaction with a help of best fitting market offering can be regarded as a

major success factor so that having high levels in both market and innovation orientation

may well turn out to be an ultimately competitive combination for companies.

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2.3.12 Strategic Emphasis on Marketing

Firms that place high strategic emphasis on marketing use positioning, market

segmentation, and marketing communications to create a distinct, favorable image for

their offerings relative to those of competitors (Porter, 1980; Miller, 1988; Moorman &

Rust, 1999). For such firms, marketing activities help in generating price-premiums and

higher customer loyalty, resulting in superior market performance (e.g., higher market

share and more loyal, stable customer base), while also providing superior value to

targeted consumers.

According to Nantel and Weeks (1996) marketing, by its very definition is principally

grounded on a utilitarian approach to ethics emphasizing the goal of achieving superior

performance. For example, Nobelist, Milton and Friedman (1970) and Miles & White

(1998) state that strategic marketing, is a tool used by management not to enhance social

well-being only, but to achieve a competitive advantage with the objective of wealth

creation for the owners. The idea of company responsibility only to shareholders is often

shared in business. Others suggest that managers could also develop a more customer-

oriented approach to marketing (Nantel & Weeks 1996). Lambert (2000) argues that

ethical values should be included in strategic models because 1) the ethical values of

management will affect decision-making, 2) a firm is accountable to its stakeholders for

its actions, and 3) a firm may improve its competitive position through ethical decision

making.

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Both internal and external environmental factors were found to have influence on

marketing strategies of manufacturing firms which brought about the need for

environmental management. Juslin (1994, 1995) has provided an approach to

environmental marketing management which is based on his integrated model of

marketing planning (Juslin, 1992). Ansoff (1965) and Shirley et al. (1981) have

especially inspired the conceptual ideas and the hierarchy presented in the model. The

model contains the usual components of marketing planning presented in marketing

textbooks (e.g. Kotler, 2000). However, the central ideas behind the model differ notably

from the most common models presented in marketing textbooks. The differences are

quite obvious when the model is compared, for example, with the frequently used "Four

P’s Model". There are differences both in the background ideology and the hierarchical

structure of the models. The idea in the model is that environmental issues should be

genuinely integrated in all the hierarchical levels of marketing planning, i.e. marketing

strategies, structures and functions.

According to Juslin’s (1992) strategic marketing planning model, three hierarchical

elements are defined in marketing planning: strategies (products, customers, market area

and competencies), structures (organization, planning and information systems, contact

channels and channels of physical distribution) and functions (personal selling,

marketing communication, market information, and product planning, pricing, physical

distribution). Interesting interfaces in this hierarchy can be found with the Banerjee’s

(1999) framework of corporate environmentalism. However, operationalisation of the

concepts in Juslin’s model is more unambiguous and it avoids mixed use of the term

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“strategy”. Juslin’s integrated model of marketing planning has been utilized and tested

with supportive results in several previous studies, e.g. Niemelä (1993); Niemelä &

Smith (1996); Martikainen (1994). All the models emphasizes on the strategic nature of

marketing.

2.3.13 Positioning Strategic Marketing

Vassinen (2006) conducted an extensive study to examine which concepts have

influenced most on strategic marketing. He found those to be (i) the competitive

environment, (ii) operational marketing performance and international growth, (iii) the

resource-based view of a firm, and (iv) market orientation and performance. This is

linked to the effectiveness of the organizations involved in trying to gain competitive

advantage.

The key to achieving organizational goals is the company being more effective than

competitors in creating, delivering and communicating superior customer value to its

chosen target markets. The marketing concept therefore takes an outside-in perspective: it

starts with a well-defined market, focuses on customer needs, co-ordinates all the

activities that will affect customers, and produces profits by satisfying customers (Kotler,

2003). “Being more effective” and “choosing target markets” in the definition also argues

that low cost and focus strategies relate to the marketing concept.

Marketing management can be seen as consisting of five steps: (1) research, (2)

segmentation, targeting and positioning, (3) marketing mix, (4) implementation, and (5)

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control (Kotler, 1999). Since the second phase of these is essentially overlapping with the

differentiation strategy, we concentrate here on other phases. Research (e.g. market

research) relates closely with market orientation and somewhat with outside-in

capabilities.

Marketing mix (product, price, place and promotion) and implementation, in turn, have

heavily to do with inside-out capabilities; good operational performance, for example. In

implementation phase information is required to flow freely between company functions

so also market orientation (more specially, inter-functional coordination) is linked with it.

In control phase feedback needs to be collected from the marketplace and corrective

actions to be taken based on the information gathered so, all the categories of strategic

marketing are involved, especially market orientation and inside-out capabilities.

In general, differentiation strategy is having strong relationship with almost all strategic

marketing components while low cost strategy only strongly relates with inside-out, or

marketing support capabilities. On the other hand, market orientation and inside-out

capabilities have most to do with marketing concept. It is hard to conclude which concept

would be closer to concept of strategic marketing. Of strategic importance is on how to

gain competitive advantage.

2.3.14 Gaining and Sustaining Competitive Advantages

It is a fact that companies differ across and within countries and industries in size, scope,

methods of operation and performance. Also amount and quality of resources provide

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potential source of company differences. Still, for any business, in order to achieve

superior performance, developing and sustaining competitive advantage is required

(Slater & Narver, 1994). Often these advantages are achieved by successful market

positioning; choosing one of three competitive strategies is better than to be “stuck in the

middle” (Porter, 1985). Competitive advantages are often achieved with combination of

good strategic insight and resources required to implement the chosen strategy.

Nevertheless, Morgan, Clark (2000) argues that, due to research ignorance of RBV, “We

have almost no knowledge concerning sources of advantage in marketing performance”.

According to Slater and Narver (1994), creation of competitive advantage has shifted

from structural characteristics, such as market power or economies of scale, to

capabilities that enable a business to consistently deliver superior value to its customers.

Resource- based view of the firm, highlighting the importance of key resources in

achieving competitive advantages thus has significant amount of explanation power when

it comes to gaining competitive advantage (Hooley et al., 2001). To take the idea even

further, competitive advantage, and subsequently performance, depends on historically

developed resource endowments (Proctor, 2000). (Hooley & Greenley, 2005)

supplements these definitions by adding a sustainability component and arguing that “for

a strategy to be sustainable it has to be based on the firm’s resources and capabilities”.

Cadogan et al. (2002) present the concept of market-based resources to characterize those

resources that enable the firm to develop a sustainable competitive advantage and create

customer value in the marketplace. This definition is in line with marketing point of view

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of developing competitive advantages and position, described by Hooley et al. (2001).

What resources, then, lead to sustainable competitive advantage? In his classic article,

Barney (1991) states that sustainable competitive advantages cannot be bought from the

marketplace. Instead, to be a source of sustainable competitive advantage, a resource has

to fulfill four conditions: 1) it must be valuable, 2) it must be rare among a firm’s current

and potential competition, 3) it must be imperfectly imitable, and 4) there cannot be

strategically equivalent substitutes for this resource that are valuable but neither rare or

imperfectly imitable.

These attributes, according to Barney (1991), can be interpreted as empirical indicators of

how heterogeneous and immobile a firm’s resources are and, thus, how useful these

resources are for generating sustained competitive advantages. Day (1999) argues that

committed relationships are among the most durable advantages because they are hard for

competition to understand copy or displace. Market orientation is learned, among others,

by associating with other employees that are already market oriented; it may therefore

well be that a truly market-oriented firm can enjoy a sustainable comparative advantage

which in turn may lead to a position of sustainable competitive advantage and eventually

superior long-run financial performance (Hunt & Morgan, 2001).

Rate of innovativeness and timing of market entry are potential facilitators of achieving

competitive advantage for firms. So-called first-mover advantages may, however, not be

sustainable and early entrants are often overtaken by competitors with more potent

resources or capabilities as the market evolves (e.g. Lieberman & Montgomery, 1988;

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1998; Porter, 1985). In fact, sustaining competitive advantage a company has managed to

achieve probably only occurs when a firm’s comparative advantage in resources

continues to yield a position of competitive advantage despite the actions of competitors

(Hunt & Morgan, 2001).

Competitive position is argued to form the dynamic link between resources, strategies,

implementation and performance in all markets (Hooley et al., 2001). Nevertheless,

moderating effect of company’s competitive positions on business performance is not

studied in this research; instead, how competitive advantages are gained and how they

affect marketing performance of a company are issues considered in the study.

There are a growing number of publications expressing the need to tailor management

control systems to support the development and implementation of organizational

strategy (Kald, 2000). Part of management control systems is performance measurement

and benchmarking (Langfield-Smith, 1997; Neely et al., 1994), which are becoming

areas of increasing interest for both practitioners and academics. These are discussed

below:

2.4 Performance

Performance outcomes result from success or market position achieved (Hooley et al.,

2001). Performance can be determined in various ways. It might stand for financial

performance, market performance, customer performance or overall performance, at

least. In this study, the term business performance is mainly used as a general

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performance measure. Financial performance literally refers to financial measures, such

as profit margin and return on investment (ROI). Market performance includes measures

of market share and sales volume. Additionally, superior performance in this study refers

to performance that exceeds that of its closest competitors (Hunt & Morgan, 2001).

Specially, superior market performance probably, but not necessarily, results in superior

financial performance (Hooley et al., 2001).

2.4.1 Benchmarking

Mayle, Hinton, Francis and Holloway (2002) defined benchmarking as a process

whereby organizations pursue enhanced performance by learning from the successful

practices of others, either from other parts of the same organization, competitors or

organizations operating in different business environments but whose business processes

are nevertheless in some way relevant. Best international strategic marketing practices

are, indeed, those that are at the core of this study.

2.4.2 Measuring Business Performance

There are several points of departure that can be used to assess performance of a

business. These include, among others, accounting perspective (assessment of financial

measures of performance), marketing perspective (assessment of marketing inputs, too)

and operations perspective (assessment of effectiveness and efficiency) (Neely, 2002).

Apart from purely accounting-based assessment, all the assessment systems are

increasingly using non-financial indicators as to help analyses. The concept of Balanced

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Scorecard (BS), introduced by Kaplan and Norton (1992) has in particular been lately

applied (situation- sensitively) more than ever. Examination with a standard BS includes

four dimensions: financial, customer, internal business process, and learning and growth.

In a way, BS integrates all the distinct points of departure discussed above.In general,

performance assessment systems can be viewed as processes with four basic steps: setting

a desired performance standard, collecting and communicating information relating to

actual performance, comparing this information with the performance standard, and

taking corrective action where necessary (Morgan, Clark & Gooner, 2002).

Lebas and Euske, (2002) further argue that performance should be clearly defined and

accurately measured. They however report examples where business performance is high

even though these principles are not fulfilled, leading to a conclusion that the theory they

provide does not apply to all companies and business environments. Again, luck

sometimes creates success. Although the concept of business performance is easily

thought to be simple, this view is not supported by several researchers (e.g. Lebas &

Euske, 2002; Clark, 2000).

On the contrary, business performance is not just something one observes and measures.

It is a relative concept defined in terms of some referent employing a complex set of

time-based and causality-based indicators bearing on future realizations. Above all,

performance is about the capability to generate future results (Lebas & Euske, 2002).

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2.4.3 Measuring Marketing Performance

Assessing marketing performance is an increasingly important but unfortunately difficult

task for managers and other corporate stakeholders. The difficulty is apparent since

marketing performance depends on external, largely uncontrollable actors, such as

customers and competitors, as well as on internal measures of performance (Clark, 2000).

To ease the complex situation at hand, several simplifications can be made. Sevin (1965)

takes this approach perhaps further than anyone else to propose simple profit- ratio to

measure efficiency. In this measure, marketing expenses are assumed to turn into profit in

a “black box”. To understand the actual reasons behind success, the “model” clearly is

not sufficiently accurate. Some other problems related to Sevin’s (1965) marketing

performance measure include difficulties in appointing certain costs to marketing,

ignorance of time lag between marketing input and its effect upon output and impact of

cumulative effects. Due to the fact that relationships in marketing are not as

straightforward as Sevin (1965) proposes, many later assessment procedures have

extended the seminal work of Sevin (Morgan, Clark & Gooner, 2002).

What complicates the interpretation and comparison of companies’ marketing

performance is that companies face a need to come up with good marketing performance.

This influences the selection of marketing metrics and, consequently, “what you measure

is what you get” (Ambler, Kokkinaki & Puntoni, 2004). It is, however, crucial to measure

the performance since, as they say, “if you don’t measure it, you can’t improve it”. Also

other needs are brought up in relation to marketing performance measurement: according

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to Lehmann (2004), it is a prerequisite in getting marketing function involved in

important business decisions.

As a consequence of assessment-related difficulties, both academics and managers

currently lack a comprehensive understanding of the marketing performance process and

factors that affect the design and use of assessment systems within companies (Morgan,

Clark & Gooner, 2002). Literature has, using one division, focused on three dimensions

of marketing performance: 1) effectiveness, the extent to which organizational goals and

objectives are achieved (e.g. marketing productivity analysis); 2) efficiency, the

relationship between performance outcomes and the inputs required to achieve them (e.g.

marketing audits); and 3) adaptiveness, the ability of the organization to respond to

environmental changes (Walker & Ruekert, 1987; Bonoma & Clark, 1988).

Clark (2000) argues that managers have a multidimensional view of marketing

performance and they judge performance drawing on all the above-mentioned

dimensions, to different degrees. Generally, effectiveness matters most and several

measures are often used; sales being the most important. In regard to effectiveness,

correct expectations are very important. If those heavily based on previous performance,

assumption of future relatively similarly following the past is made; this kind of reactive

control approaches can become dangerous especially in markets experiencing fast

structural changes.

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Clark (2000) using another categorizing, literature in strategic marketing has highlighted

three measurement orientations relevant to performance assessment: customer-focused

indicators, (e.g. customer satisfaction and customer retention); competitor-centered

indicators (e.g. relative sales growth and relative market share); and internally-oriented

indicators (e.g. profitability and ROI). Morgan, Clark and Gooner (2002) suggest that

companies are better off using current competitor referents than internally- oriented past

company performance. We do not, however, have any empirical knowledge to suggest

that the use of any particular performance referent is inherently superior to any other.

2.4.4 Performance Impact of Strategic Marketing

Before 1990s, research interest in studies examining performance impact of strategic

marketing was focused on organizational resources and positions relating to sustainable

competitive advantage while organizational processes were not much considered.

Nowadays, however, both of these research streams that importantly explain long-term

competitive advantages and business performance are well represented. Market

orientation research has been a fruitful field of study in the marketing literature. In the

beginning of the 1990s and in the spirit of market orientation, Kohli & Jaworski (1990)

interviewed some American managers. They saw profitability as a consequence of

market orientation rather than part of it.

How would market orientation lead to superior performance, they suggested that it

facilitates, clarifies focus and vision in an organization’s strategy (Kohli & Jaworski,

1990). This is in a way also, supported by PIMS studies that concluded that it is better to

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be small than “stuck in the middle” (Buzzell & Gale, 1987). Concurrently with Kohli

and Jaworski (1990); Narver and Slater (1990) explored the relationship between market

orientation and business profitability of 140 manufacturing companies in both

commodity products businesses and non-commodity businesses only to find, in both

types of firms, a substantial positive relationship. High level of market orientation was

also argued to lead to, among others, high customer satisfaction and high repeat sales.

In addition to market orientation, as stated previously, also superior resources may lead

to great business performance, both market and financial. This is brought up by Hunt

and Morgan (2001) who argue that “a comparative advantage in resources can translate

into a position of competitive advantage in the marketplace and superior financial

performance”. This is why firms constantly struggle for resources that could give them

comparative and, consequently, competitive advantage (Hunt & Morgan, 2001).

Based on the early work of Kohli and Jaworski (1990) and Narver and Slater (1990),

studies in different parts of the world have been conducted. They have developed and

refined research tools for assessing degrees of market orientation in firms and examining

its links with both market and financial performance. In general, market orientation is

found to positively relate to performance; in rather many studies, however, the

relationship has been found to be relatively weak, though significant. Typically only less

than 20% of performance variations between firms are explained through differences in

market orientation alone (Hooley et al., 2001).

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In addition to positive relationship between market orientation and business

performance, also innovation orientation and innovativeness have been shown to have

positive relationship with competitive advantage and related isolation mechanisms

(Tuominen, 2003) and financial performance (Hooley & Greenley, 2005). Components

within strategic marketing relate to each other, too. It is for example argued that due to

focus on developing information on markets, market oriented firms are sensitive to

changing customer needs and therefore are more likely to innovate successfully than

other firms (Matsuno, Mentzer & Özsomer, 2002).

2.4.5 Performance Impact in Different Business Environments

It is reasonable to assume that same resources, strategies and orientations do not lead to

identical performance in different countries and business environments. This is due to

differences in, for example, market culture and buyer orientations. Phenomenon may be

considered as analogous to differences in market conditions when the entity under

examination is an individual offering; the Performance Impact of Marketing Strategy

(PIMS) studies have confirmed the negative relationship between declining life cycle

stage and Returns on Investment (ROI) and the positive counterpart between growing

market and ROI (Buzzell and Gale, 1987). Business environments are in a state of

continuous change, too. Competitive positions will themselves evolve and change as the

resource base and the market environment in which they are created changes. In some

markets this change will necessarily be very rapid. In others, it might be occurring at a

slower pace (Hooley et al., 2001). Whatever the environment, the job of the marketing

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department is to adapt a firm’s strategy to different environmental conditions in a way

that produces a favorable response (Clark, 2000).

Several market orientation studies have proposed that market orientation effects on

business performance might be moderated by market environment (Hooley et al., 2001).

For example, according to Kohli and Jaworski (1990), the greater the market

(technological) turbulence, the stronger (weaker) the relationship between a market

orientation and business performance. They also argue that the greater the competition,

the stronger the relationship between a market orientation and business performance, and

the weaker the general economy, the stronger the relationship between a market

orientation and business performance.

Slater and Narver (1994), too, found market and other stakeholder effects on performance

to be moderated by the operational environment. To sum up, it seems that in certain

circumstances, such as limited competition, stable market preferences and

technologically turbulent industries, market orientation may not be critical factor in good

business performance. This is due to relatively high resource needs of market orientation

(Kohli & Jaworski, 1990).

The impact of a firm’s own orientation, and subsequent actions in the marketplace, are

likely to be affected by the actions of competitors, together with general market

conditions. This is why the choice of which capabilities to nurture and which investment

commitments to make must be guided by a shared understanding of the industry

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structure, the needs of target customer segments, positional advantages being sought and

trends in the environment (Day, 1994).

What the study observes is that not all the manufacturing companies in Nigeria use

performance indicators as highlighted above to assess their success capabilities through

the analysis of marketing opportunities, as well as developing the right marketing mix

strategies that fit into their organizations. This is a serious problem confronting

manufacturers which must be addressed by those wishing to remain competitive within

the dynamic environment.

2.4.6 Strategy and Performance Measurement

The history and evolution of performance measurement has been extensively mapped and

discussed (Neely, 2002) Ittner and Larcker (2003) suggest that performance measurement

is used to help direct the allocation of resources, access and communicate progress

towards strategic objectives; and evaluate managerial performance. Neely et al, (1994)

further claim that performance measurement helps managers to identify good

performance; makes explicit the trade-offs between profit and investment; provides a

means of introducing individual strategic stretch targets; and ensures that corporate

management knows when to intervene if business performance is deteriorating.

The need for organizations to align their strategies with their performance measurement

systems is well established in the literature (Dyson, 2000). That is why a great number of

integrated frameworks have been developed such as the Balanced Scorecard, the

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Performance Prism, the Performance Pyramid, the Integrated Performance Measurement

Methodology and the Cambridge Performance Measurement Methodology (see Hudson

et al., 2001, for an extensive review of the most basic frameworks).

However, very limited published research has been found on the influence on

performance measurement (Hudson et al., 2001; Kennerley & Neely, 2003). Moreover,

Langfield-Smith (1997) claims that relatively few studies have been published examining

the relationship between strategy and management control systems. De Waal (2003)

studied the behavioural factors which are important for the successful implementation

and use of performance measurement systems, and suggests that further research is

required “into other factors, such as environmental or organizational”. Therefore, this

research examines empirically the factors influencing implementation of strategic

marketing among manufacturing companies in Nigeria.

2.5 The Resource-Based View and Competitive Advantage

The pursuit of Sustainable Competitive Advantage is an idea that is at the heart of much

of the strategic management and marketing literature [See for example, Porter (1985),

Coyne (1986), Ghemawat (1986), Day & Wensley (1988), and Wil-liams (1992)].

Gaining a competitive advantage through the provision of greater value to customers can

be expected to lead to superior performance measured in conventional terms such as

market-based performance (e.g., market share, customer satisfaction) and financial-based

performance (e.g., return on investment, shareholder wealth creation; Bharadwaj,

Varadarajan & Fahy 1993; Hunt & Morgan 1995). Research by Jacobsen and Aaker

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(1985), Buzzell and Gale (1987), Jacobsen (1988) have argued that market-share and

profitability are both outcomes of the efforts by firms to secure cost and differentiation

advantages. Extant marketing literature emphasizes a link between the delivery of value

to customers and levels of customer satisfaction leading to potential market share and

profitability gains (Kotler, 1994). Where Clear definitions of the concept of sustainable

competitive advantage (SCA) are rare competitive advantage is often used

interchangeably with concepts like distinctive competence (Day & Wensley, 1988).

Understanding competitive advantage requires an analysis of its constituent elements.

Advantage is a relative concept (Hu 1995; Kay 1993) only meaningful when compared to

another entity or set of entities. A competitive advantage then, is an advantage one firm

has over a competitor or group of competitors in a given market, strategic group or

industry (Kay 1993). Any given firm may have many advantages over another firm such

as a superior production system, a lower level of wages and salaries or an ability to

deliver superior customer service but the important advantages are those in which

customers place some level of value (Coyne 1986). Therefore, the locus of advantage is

in the marketplace and positions of advantage are generally regarded as being either

differentiation or lower delivered cost (Porter 1985) or both (Gilbert & Strebel 1991).

More than one firm in a given market can have a competitive advantage. For example,

company A can have an advantage over B but firm B can also have an advantage over

company C (Kay 1993).

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Also of interest to researchers is the question of whether advantages are sustainable. The

terms sustained advantage (Barney 1991) and sustainable advantage (Grant 1991) both

appear in the literature, but both can be interpreted in the same way. Sustainability does

not refer to a particular period of calendar time nor does it imply that advantages persist

indefinitely (Gunther McGrath, MacMillan & Venkataraman, 1995), rather depends on

the possibility and extent of competitive duplication. Industries such as financial services

are typically cited as examples of where sustainable advantages are difficult to attain and

competitive moves are rapidly imitated (Bhide, 1986). The attainment of a SCA can be

expected to lead to superior performance measured in conventional terms such as market-

share and profitability (Bharadwaj, Varadarajan & Fahy, 1993).

2.6 Factors Influencing the Implementation of Strategic Marketing

According to Kotler (1991) factors influencing the application of strategic marketing

could be internal and external in nature.

Internal

The internal factors include the marketing mix decisions (the type of the product, price,

place and promotion strategies), Funds availability, Attitude of marketing executives and

company marketing orientations and capabilities.

The Type of the Product

Cavusgil et al. (1993) define the type of product as the product‘s classification. Nicolaud

(1989) and Meidan (1996) state that product can be tangible or intangible which often

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cannot be marketed without an effective marketing strategy. Czinkota and Ronkainen,

(2004) further state that the value of manufactured goods is easier to measure as

compared to service; its performances are easier to observe and to possess, compared to

intangible goods. Meidan (1996) maintains that manufacturing companies need to

implement a sound strategy toward effective marketing of unique product.

Product Uniqueness

Cavusgil et al. (1993) define product uniqueness as the degree to which the product is

made or designed to satisfy unique needs of the customers. According to Rahman et al

(1994) there is constant pressure within the competitive manufacturing environment to

innovate and develop new ways to improve customer service. Long-term person-to-

person relationships between a firm, its distributors and its customers, are seen as an

important factor for manufacturing companies to gain competitive advantage. However,

Meidan (1996) claims that since manufacturing companies offer different products, it is

very easier to differentiate.

Pricing Dimension

Kotler (1991) identifies the pricing dimension of a product as an important aspect of

marketing as it is the only element in the marketing mix that produces revenue, all other

elements represent costs. Price is one of the most flexible elements of marketing mix

strategies. Unlike product features and channel commitments, price can be changed

quickly. At the same time, pricing and price competition is the number one problem

facing many marketing executives in the implementation of marketing strategies. Yet,

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many companies do not handle pricing well. One frequent problem is that companies are

too quick to reduce price in order to get a sale rather than convincing buyers that their

products are worth a higher price. Other common mistakes include pricing that is too

cost-oriented rather than customer- value- oriented price that are not revised.

Place

According to Kotler (1991), place is an element in the marketing mix which deals with

how manufacturers distribute products to the consumers. The movement of goods and

services from the manufacturer to the consumer is known as distribution. Place and

distribution involves those management tasks concerned with making the product

available and accessible to buyers and potential buyers which requires an effective

application of the right strategy to achieve the distribution objectives. The word

availability describes the fact that a product or service is capable of being acquired and

used by buyers and potential buyers. While Accessibility describes the fact that a product

is accessible if potential buyers find it easy and convenience to acquire and use.

Promotion

Promotion is the direct way an organization tries to reach its publics. This is performed

through the five elements of the promotion mix, i.e. advertising, sales promotion,

personal selling, public relations, and direct marketing ( Czinkota & Ronkainen, 2004).

With the growing importance of the manufacturing sector, pressures are escalating for

more effective marketing management of the manufactured goods. Despite the recent

recessions, the manufacturing sector is continuing to grow in terms of turnover and

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profits and thus, has a supreme impact on the other spheres of the economy.

Consequently, there is currently growing interest in applying marketing techniques and

tools in manufacturing activities (Meidan, 1996). In spite of major changes taking place

within the Nigerian marketing environment, there are indications that some

manufacturing firms have not yet successfully embraced the marketing philosophy or

achieved levels of its implementation consistent with satisfied customers. Firms are

realizing that their established promotion practices are inadequate for new market

conditions as levels of customer defection in the sector grow.

Funds Availability

Kotler (1991) emphasizes that regardless of what may be the most desirable strategy, the

amount of money available for the application of the strategies is the real determinant of

its successful implementation. A business with ample funds can make more effective

implementation of strategies than an enterprise with limited financial resources.

Attitude of Marketing Executives

In the course of achieving societal need (satisfaction), some unwanted output and

activities are generated consciously or unconsciously by the marketing executives (kotler,

1991). All the unwanted output which contravenes the code of ethics of marketing

practice poses serious problem to the society. In order to achieve some set objectives

towards a targeted market, marketing executives indulge in some un-ethical marketing

practices to the detriment of the customers and organization as a whole. This constitutes a

serious societal problem that can impact negatively on the performance of any company.

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According to Markides et al (1996) delivering the right product or services to the right

customer at the right place, the right time, using the most effective promotional plans and

a unique selling preposition combined with market orientations and marketing

capabilities will help organizations to gain competitive advantage. This will greatly help

in influencing the successful implementation of marketing strategy of any type.

However, the external factors according to Kotler (1991) include environmental factors

such as; Technological, Cultural, Economic, Legal, Political, Competitive and

International. Others include Infrastructure and general uncertainties associated with the

environment.

External

Technology Orientation

According to Cavusgil et al. (1993), the application of strategic marketing can be

influenced by the technology orientation of the firm. Technology orientation refers to the

technology intensity of the industry. Joseph et al. (1999) claim that technology has

increasingly been applied in the marketing of goods and services since the mid-eighties.

The adoption of technology into manufacturing industry has become important, and

producers are encouraged to invest in technology as a way of securing their future in the

electronic age. Meidan (1996) states that new products, new payment systems, new forms

of distribution and delivery and improved management information systems are

increasing the demand of technology within the manufacturing sector.

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Cultural Specificity

According to Cavusgil et al. (1993) cultural specificity of a product concerns if the

product relates to the extent to which the product mediates the needs of a specific culture.

Albers-Miller et al. (2000), state that consumer expectations can differ tremendously and

the issues of culture should therefore be thoroughly examined by manufacturers. An

understanding of the customers is essential in order to provide the satisfaction more

effectively and efficiently. Root (1994) indicates that the greater the distance between

two cultures, the harder it is to communicate effectively. Culture can affect many, if not

all, of an organization‘s strategic decisions. Meidan (1996) states that manufacturing

companies tend to meet general needs rather than specific. He claims that a company

should analyze the wants and needs of different market segments and design its

marketing mix to fulfill them. Consequently, market segmentation is essential.

Economic Conditions

Papavassiliou and Stathakopoulus (1997) indicate that the economic conditions

prevailing in the country are of major concern in influencing the application of strategy.

Brassington and Pettit (2000) mean that these economic factors can include inflation,

exchange rates, income, consumption potential, rate of unemployment and exchange

control regulations.

Legal Regulations

According to Cavusgil et al. (1993) similarity of legal regulation is defined as the degree

of market similarity, and similarity of legal regulation between the host and home

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country. Brassington and Pettit (2000) name political stability, ownership restrictions,

employment laws, safety regulations, financial laws, promotion constraints, price

regulations, and consumer protection legislation as some of the political and legal factors

affecting the implementation of strategic marketing by manufacturing companies.

Cavusgil et al. (1993) further state that in an export market where the legal regulations

are comparable with those in the home market, companies have less pressure to modify

their strategies to suit the particular environment in which they operate.

Competitive Nature

According to Cavusgil et al. (1993) competitiveness of the market refers to the

competitive intensity of the environment. Czinkota and Ronkainen (2004) mean that there

is a greater variance of competition in the international market than the domestic. To be

successful, an organization has to learn about the competitive activities and evaluate the

actual and potential impact it has on its own operations. Papavassiliou and

Stathakopoulus (1997) further state that by making a competitive analysis, multinational

corporations can gain a —competitive advantage”. According to Quintana (2003)

increased competition has strongly affected manufacturing activities throughout the

industrialized world, and there is now greater diversity than ever before in the activities

and markets in which manufacturing companies decide to operate.

International

According to Cavusgil et al. (1993) a firm‘s international position could be an influencing

factor. Company’s international experience refers to its previous international practice

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and the amount of information management the firm gained about the target country. A

firm can gain international experience through involvement in international marketing,

operating in many foreign markets, and through interaction with foreign suppliers or

distributors. Ghauri and Holstius (1996) mean that gaining information about the target

market can be very difficult in developing countries because the infrastructure is often

underdeveloped unlike in Europe where there are adequate infrastructural facilities to

support the development and growth of marketing activities. Getting information from

local counterparts may also be difficult, and it necessitates the development of

relationships and mutual trust. However, research shows that this is a serious issue in

developing countries like Nigeria (Akpan, 2003; Onu, 2000).

Basic Infrastructure

Onu (2000) state that the availability of basic infrastructure can affect the implementation

of marketing strategies; the basic infrastructure consists of the institutions and functions

essential to the marketing process, such as availability of good roads, stable power

supply, portable drinking water, etc. Arnold et al. (2001) claim that in the latter years, a

great deal of money has been invested in basic infrastructure in Europe and latin

America, and this in turn has increased availability of basic infrastructure and

development of manufacturing activities but the reverse is the case in Nigeria as there is

either complete absence or collapse of basic infrastructure which hampers manufacturing

activities. This unique problem arising from the framework of the study has further

motivated the need for the research interest.

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2.7 Indicators on the factors influencing Strategic Marketing and Company

Performance

In order to accurately measure the factors influencing strategic marketing and company

performance, it is important to identify the indicators of each dimension for which we can

precisely measure. There are several constructs for strategic marketing success widely

used by many scholars, such as those designed by proctor (2000); Hooley and Greenly

(2005), which are usually modified in one way or the other in various industry contexts.

Hunt and Morgan (2001) identified seven main variables in strategic marketing: (1)

Market orientation (2) Innovation (3) marketing assets and capabilities (4) sustainable

competitive advantage (5) market performance (6) ethical issues (7) environmental factors

(appendix 4).

2.8 Theoretical Framework

The purpose of this section is to present the theory “strategic marketing” in relation with

other, more established frameworks in marketing and strategy. The study is based partly

on theories used in previous studies where the integrated model of strategic marketing is

analyzed (e.g. Gupta & Govindarajan, 1984; Guth & MacMillan, 1986; Govindarajan,

1989; Wooldridge & Floyd, 1990, 1992b, 1997; Skivington & Daft, 1991; Noble, 1999b;

Noble & Mokwa, 1999; Beer & Eisenstat, 2000; Okumus, 2001; Qi, 2005). The section

begins with traditional and modern theories on strategic marketing focusing on multiple

related factors, theoretical bases upon which the study was conducted and the

contribution of the study to the manufacturing sector.

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2.8.1 Studies Focusing on Multiple Related Factors

The studies reviewed in this section approach the factors that influence the

implementation of strategic marketing from a holistic perspective which was categorized

in two distinct ways: either through the simple categorization of various factors into

groups or categories (such as the studies of Skivington & Daft, 1991; Noble, 1999b;

Noble & Mokwa, 1999; Beer & Eisenstat, 2000; Okumus, 2001), or by relating them in

a (often graphic) framework (as in Noble, 1999a; Qi, 2005). Both kinds of studies are

summarized below.

Both Skivington and Daft (1991) and Noble (1999b) classify strategy implementation

variables into two dimensions: framework and process, but with different content in

their categories. Skivington and Daft (1991) stipulate two generic types of strategic

decisions – low cost and differentiation – that need to be implemented through two

organizational modalities, namely framework and process. An organization’s framework

is represented by its rules and resources. The organization’s process is represented by

interactions, meanings, and sanctions. Skivington and Daft‟s findings begin to bridge

the gap empirically between framework and process views to capture the

multidimensionality of business level strategy implementation. Their findings indicate

that low cost and differentiation strategy implementation employ different variables, and

that a specific pattern (or gestalt) of variables may exist for each type of strategy.

Based on the study of Skivington and Daft (1991), Noble (1999b) reviews marketing

strategy implementation from a structural view (emphasizing organizational structure

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and control mechanisms) and an interpersonal process view (emphasizing strategic

consensus, autonomous strategic behaviors, diffusion perspectives, leadership and

implementation style, communication and interaction processes). Noble & Mokwa

(1999) add a third view – the individual-level processes view, emphasizing cognition,

organizational roles and commitment besides the structural and interpersonal process

view.

Earlier studies led by Okumus (e.g., Okumus, 2001; Gupta et al., 1984) group

implementation variables into a larger number of categories. These categories are:

strategic content, context (consisting of organizational context: organizational structure,

organizational culture; and environmental context: uncertainty in the general and

uncertainty in the task environment), process (operational planning, resources, people,

communication, control and feedback) and strategic outcome.

Okumus (2001) also adopts the above framework, but adds three new variables. The

revised implementation framework includes four parts: content (strategic decision,

multiple project implementation), context (internal context: organizational structure,

organizational culture, organizational learning; external context: environmental

uncertainty in the general and task environment), process (operational planning,

resources allocation, people, communication, monitoring and feedback, external

partners) and outcome (tangible and intangible outcomes of the project). The framework

is depicted in Figure 2.

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Figure 2: The strategy implementation framework by Okumus (2001)

Key *

Implementation variables

1. The characteristics of and developments in, the external environment influence the

strategic context and force the companies to develop new initiatives

2. The problems and inconsistencies in the internal context require new projects

3. The project is implemented in the internal context and the characteristics of, and

changes in; the context variables influence the process variables

4. All the process variables are used on a continuous basis

5. (a) The characteristics of, and changes in, the external and internal context have

impacts on the outcomes; (b) The characteristics of the process variables, and how they

are used, determine the outcomes of the project implementation

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The strategic models examined in the study had to be implemented with a proper “fit”

between the strategy and the implementation variables. It appears that any problem or

inconsistency with one variable influences other variables and subsequently the success

of the implementation process. Consequently, it seems an almost insurmountable

challenge to achieve coherence among all relevant implementation variables in dynamic

and complex contexts. Yet, it is the combination of all variables working together which

makes a successful implementation process possible.

In addition, the study emphasizes the importance of contextual variables: The internal

context plays a key role in implementing strategic decisions. Focusing on the

implementation process alone and ignoring the wider context does not provide a clear

and holistic picture of the implementation process and its challenges. Studies in the

second group compile multiple factors in a framework or model (Noble, 1999a; Higgins,

2005; Qi, 2005; Brenes & Mena & Molina, 2007), thus not only grouping

implementation variables but organizing them in a web of causal or temporal

relationships.

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Table 1: Noble’s Strategy Implementation Framework

LEVERS STAGES

Pre-

Implementation

Organizing the

Implementation Effort

Managing the

Implementation

Process

Maximizing

Cross-functional

Performance

Goals Ensure that all

managers are

aware of the

strategic goals

of the firm

Introduce goals of the

strategy being

implemented, incl. fit

within firm‟s broader

strategic vision

Maintain the

flexibility to

adapt goals based

on environmental

changes

Develop and

focus on common

goals to

encourage cross-

functional

cohesiveness

Organizatio

nal

structure

Ensure that

functional areas

have the slack

resources

needed to be

able to

contribute to an

implementation

effort

Establish a formal

implementation unit

and ensure its visibility

throughout the firm

Ensure equal

representation by

all affected

functional areas

Temporarily

suspend key

implementation

team members‟

normal

responsibilities to

allow them to

focus on the

implementation

effort

Leadership Develop

employees‟

knowledge and

appreciation of

multiple

functional areas

Establish a “champion”

who has both official

cross-functional

authority and general

respect in the firm

Ensure that

leaders show

equal attention to

all functional-

level concerns

Balance visible

and charismatic

leadership with a

maintenance of

autonomy for

functional-level

implementation

efforts

Communicat

ions

Maintain regular

cross-functional

communications

to foster

understanding

and appreciation

Discuss and resolve

implementation details

early in the process

Update

implementation

team frequently

on progress and

changes in

objectives

Communicate

implementation

progress across

the entire

organization to

foster buy-in

Incentives Reward the

development of

cross-functional

skills

Develop time and

performance-based

incentives for

implementation team

while lessening

traditional functional

incentives

Adjust incentives

as strategy and

environmental

conditions change

during

implementation

Establish visible

and consistent

cross-functional

rewards for

successful

implementation

efforts

Source: Noble (1999a)

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Noble‟s (1999a) marketing strategy implementation framework as depicted in Table 1 is

organized around four major stages of the implementation effort – pre-implementation,

organizing the implementation effort, managing the implementation process,

maximizing cross-functional performance. There are five managerial levers for these

implementation phases: goals, organizational structure, leadership, communications, and

incentives. According to Noble, the management of these factors changes through the

implementation stages (although they are all important in every single phase).

Considering these factors in combination with each major stage provides a useful

heuristic to improve strategy implementation.

Higgins (2005) sets up an “8„S‟ s” framework of strategy implementation, including (1)

Strategy; (2) Structure; (3) Systems; (4) Style; (5) Staff; (6) Shared Values (or super-

ordinate goals); (7) resources and (8) Strategic performance. The “8„Ss” of strategy

execution is an approach that enables senior management to enact, monitor, and assess

the cross functional execution of strategies. The „8„Ss of strategy execution‟ are a

revision of the Loewen (1997) 7„S‟s model. Higgins has deleted skills from the Loewen

framework and he has added resources in their place. He also added strategic

performance in order to help focus the strategy execution process. As always, if there

isn’t a good match or alignment among these factors, performance in strategy

implementation will suffer. Qi (2005) puts forward seven factors for successful

marketing strategy implementation namely adequate feedback systems, sufficient

resources, good leadership and direction skills, motivation for all involved staff,

communication and coordination of an appropriate company structure and culture.

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Brenes, Mena and Molina (2007) point out five key dimensions of successful

implementation of marketing strategy. These five dimensions are the strategy formulation

process, systematic execution, implementation control and follow-up, CEO’s leadership

and suitable, motivated management and employees, and, finally, corporate governance

(board and shareholders) leading the change. All five dimensions must be managed

comprehensibly to align them with the firm’s strategic choices. Their framework arranges

these factors in a simple value chain model. The following preliminary conclusions can be

drawn regarding the reviewed studies:

First of all, executors or people issues receive the most attention. This is especially true

with regard to middle managers whose role is analyzed in depth in many studies (Gupta &

Govindarajan, 1984; Guth & MacMillan, 1986; Govindarajan, 1989; Judge & Stahl, 1995;

Heracleous, 2000; Waldersee & Sheather, 1996; Wooldridge & Floyd, 1990, 1992b, 1997;

Qi, 2005).

Second, the reviewed studies do not present a clear picture regarding the relationships

among the implementation variables of communication, commitment and consensus.

Communication is treated as a premise to realize commitment and consensus. Rapert,

Velliquette and Garretson (2002) find that the viability of frequent vertical communication

is a means by which strategic consensus may be enhanced. When vertical communication

is frequent, strategic consensus is enhanced and organizational performance improves.

Macmillan and Guth (1985) and McDermott & Boyer (1999) think that adequate

communication with functional managers about the reasons for the selected or sponsored

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strategy is a key to gaining this shared understanding (Rapert & Velliquette & Garretson,

2002).

Building understanding requires frequent and constant communication when strategic-

change evolves one step at a time. An important key to building the seeds of

understanding, identity, and commitment is communication between and among top and

functional-level management. Several researchers just point out that communication is an

important factor, but there are no in-depth analyses about how exactly communication

influences strategy implementation. There is disagreement in relation to the variables‟

exact meanings, content, relationships and influence on strategy implementation. As far as

the relationships between commitment and consensus are concerned, some researchers

take commitment as a single factor influencing strategy implementation (Alexander, 1985;

Guth & MacMillan, 1986; Noble & Mokwa, 1999; Heracleous, 2000), while other

researches take it as an ingredient prompting consensus (Noble, 1999b; Floyd &

Wooldridge, 1992a) or as something that goes deeper than consensus (Rapert & Lynch &

Suter, 1996) or even the outcome of consensus (Dess & Priem, 1995; Dooley & Fryxell &

Judge, 2000).

Third, regarding the relationships among different unit/department levels (Walker &

Ruekert, 1987; Gupta, 1987; Chimhanzi, 2004; Chimhanzi & Morgan, 2005), few studies

focus on the effect on implementation that the relationships among different strategy

levels have. Slater & Olson (2001) examine the relationships between marketing strategy

and business strategy. It should be an interesting point to consider the relationships among

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the different levels of strategy (i.e., functional, business, corporate) on implementation

success.

Fourth, there is a clear trend towards (more elaborate) frameworks and model-based

approaches to marketing strategy implementation. For example, Noble & Mokwa (1999)

put forward three dimensions including a structural view, an interpersonal process view

and an individual-level processes view. Okumus (2001) also adds new variables to

previous studies (e.g., Gupta et al., 1984). In our view, however, these frameworks do not

yet add a lot of value to the current arguments and this for two reasons: first, they do not

sufficiently profit from previous empirical research on marketing strategy implementation,

and secondly they do not relate the variables to each other in a sufficiently informative

way. As a call for action, future strategy implementation frameworks must be based on

prior causal analysis (regarding individual factors and their relations) and they should

make research results accessible to practitioners by visualizing their findings in an

intriguing (non-trivial) manner.

In this study, we have reviewed some factors that affect strategy implementation success

(they are: strategy formulation and relationships among different units/departments and

different strategy levels as mixed factors; soft factors: executors, communication,

implementation tactics, consensus, commitment; hard factors: organizational structure,

administrative systems). Figure 3 summarizes the review of these nine factors and

frameworks as described by Okumus (2001) which will provide the necessary impetus

for successful strategy implementation.

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Figure 3: A framework of strategy implementation success (Okumus, 2001)

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As a mixed factor, strategy formulation is both an institutional and an interpersonal

process that gathers data and viewpoints and ultimately results in strategic decisions.

These strategic decisions and how they have been reached have a major impact on

strategy implementation success. Hard, institutional, factors (organizational structure,

administrative systems) and soft, people-oriented factors (executors, communication,

implementation tactics, consensus, and commitment) influence implementation outcome

dialectically. Consensus and commitment can be achieved with the help of proper

implementation tactics and communication activities. There are complex mutual

influence among mixed factor (relationships among different units/departments and

different strategy levels), soft factors (executors, communication, implementation

tactics, consensus, and commitment) and Hard, factors (organizational structure,

administrative systems). These factors in turn are influenced by four generic phases of

strategy implementation: pre-implementation, organizing implementation, managing

implementation, and sustaining performance. This sequence is based on Noble‟s (1999)

framework and revised. We have allocated key success factors mentioned in several

studies to the respective steps.

2.8.2 Theoretical Bases

The premise behind this section is that different theoretical bases emphasize different

issues regarding marketing strategy implementation. Hence we will now examine the

underlying theoretical bases of the studies reviewed in this study. In order to evaluate the

factors influencing strategy implementation the researches reviewed here made use of a

variety of theories, including theory on the application of strategic marketing (Kotler,

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1991), theory of comparative advantage (Hunt & Morgan, 2001), theory of generic

competition (Porter, 1980), Market orientation theory (Kohli & Jaworski, 1990; Narver

& Slater, 1990) and some blends of Lowen (1997), Higgen (2005) and Qi (2005)

theories on marketing strategy implementation.

The more exotic of these theories provide surprising and useful additional insights

regarding marketing strategy implementation: Porter (1980); Miller (1988); Moorman and

Rust (1999) point out that companies that place high strategic emphasis on marketing use

positioning, market segmentation and marketing communications to create a distinct,

favourable image for their offerings relative to those of the competitors. This will

subsequently result to superior market performance. While the theory on strategic

marketing (Kotler, 1991), emphasizes on the relevance of environmental scanning and

analysis with a view to ensure successful implementation of strategies. The theory calls for

marketers to constantly analyze the internal and external environmental factors with a

view to spot out opportunities and threats so as to remain competitive.

The study was also based on the theory of competitive advantage (Hunt & Morgan, 2001)

who argues that a comparative advantage in resources can translate into a position of

competitive advantage in the market place and subsequently, superior financial

performance. They identified seven main variables in the implementation of strategic

marketing: market orientation, innovation, marketing assets and capabilities, competitive

advantage, market performance and financial performance.

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The study also draw on Lowen (1997) theory on strategy implementation using lowens’

7’s strategy execution namely strategy, structure, style, system, staff, shared values and

skills complimented with Higgin (2005) revised 8’s which emphasized that if there is no

good match or alignment among the strategy execution factors, performance will suffer.

While Qi (2005) put forwards seven factors for successful strategy implementation

namely; (1) adequate feedback systems (2) sufficient resources (3) good leadership (4)

direction skills (5) motivation (6) communication and (7) coordination of appropriate

company structure and culture. It thus seems that marketing strategy implementation lends

itself to a multitude of theories that could also be employed in an interdisciplinary manner,

thus mutually enriching our understanding of this complex phenomenon.

2.8.3 Contribution of Performance Studies to the Manufacturing Sector

Performance studies greatly contribute to both business and academic discussion, giving

important insights about real success of a company. Managers particularly in the

manufacturing sector, can evaluate the success of their company generally or in a certain

part of a business and to come to conclusions that benefit the company in both short and

long term. They offer the systematic groundwork for favorable competitive position and

related operational performance. It needs to however be noticed that performance is

meaningful only when used by a decision maker (Lebas & Euske, 2002).

In 2000, Clark studied how managers actually judge marketing performance. In addition

to that study, there are not very many studies regarding the practical part of performance

managing, however. These kinds of studies would be of importance since it is often

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crucial to know what factors help marketers in the implementation of strategic marketing

which manufacturers are trying to maximize. That is why researchers need to account

for the measures which marketers are using to gain competitive advantage.

2.9 Existing Gap for the Study

The study made significant contribution to the existing knowledge of strategic marketing

literature particularly in the Nigerian context where similar works have been carried out

(such as those of Nwokoye in 1981 and Onu in 2000) but do not adequately provided an

in-depth analysis into the concept of strategic marketing in Nigeria. Even though, similar

studies were conducted by Agbonifoh and Iyayi (1999) and Akpan (2003) who had at

different times studied the concept of strategic marketing and came up with useful

contributions to the subject matter, their studies were limited in scope as they had only

dealt with the process without adequately dwelling on the factors influencing strategic

marketing on the performance of companies in Nigeria which this study accomplished.

2.10 Summary of the Review

This chapter dealt with literature reviews and theoretical framework on strategic

marketing theories. Various assertions made by scholars related to the major areas of

strategic marketing and company performance were discussed. The literature analyzed

the relevance of the implementation of strategic marketing which help to achieve some

set objectives, these objectives can be measured in terms of profit, market share,

marketing cost, gross earnings, capital employed, asset quality, quality of marketing

management, liquidity, turnover of marketing staff etc.

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The literature also shows that the implementation of strategic marketing has been

influenced by so many factors that are both internal and external to the organization

which marketers have to deal with through an effective management and control process.

The chapter also, dealt with important individual factors that influence strategy

implementation such as strategy formulation process, the strategy executors (managers,

employees), the organizational structure, the communication activities, the level of

commitment for the strategy, the consensus regarding the strategy, the relationships

among different units/departments and different strategy levels. Other studied areas

include the works of Kotler and Keller (2006) who at different times emphasize on the

importance of Adequate funding to the successful implementation of any marketing

strategy.

Different models of strategy implementation types were evaluated to help provide the

much needed guide on decisions as it relates to various marketing strategies that will

provide the understanding of those positive attitudes and quality of people involved in

the execution process of any strategy implementation. The Theories also dwelled on

those environmental management issues that can have a serious impact on the

implementation of marketing strategies and finally, the extent on how infrastructure

affects strategic marketing activities was also studied. The overall objectives are to

understand how the studied factors contribute significantly to the high performance of

Nigerian manufacturing companies.

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CHAPTER THREE

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

3.1 Introduction

This chapter deals with the methods in which the research is carried out and provides a

justification for each step taken. The chapter discusses the general research design,

population of the study, sampling techniques, and sample size, sources of data and

methods of data collection and analysis, regression of strategic marketing variables on

company performance as well as credibility of the research, and methodological

difficulties.

3.2 Research Design

This study has significant combination of descriptive, explanatory and exploratory

research. Firstly we seek to describe or portray a reality regarding strategic marketing

activities of manufacturing companies in Nigeria making it descriptive. Secondly, the

study seeks to establish relationship that exists between variables. In other words, it seeks

to provide an explanation on the relationship between strategic marketing and company

performance, making it explanatory. Thirdly, in this study we conducted pilot test to test

the validity and reliability of our research instruments which makes it exploratory.

Furthermore, the study combines the use of both qualitative and quantitative data; the

qualitative data were the survey data used to measure strategic marketing variables

namely; Implementation of Marketing Policies and Strategies (IMPS), Fund inadequacy

(FI), Attitudes of Marketing Executives (AME), Environmental Uncertainties (EU) and

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Absence or Collapse of Infrastructure (ACI) while the quantitative data (Net profit) was

used to measure company performance variables.

3.3 Population of the Study

The study consists of the 145 manufacturing companies listed on the Nigerian Stock

Exchange (NSE) as at December 2011 (appendix 2A).

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Table 2: Target Population of the study

Source: Factbook of the NSE, 2011

S/N Geo-political Zones No. of Companies

1. North-Central 05

2. North-East 01

3. North-West 07

4. South-South 06

5. South-East 10

6. South- West 116

Total Population 145

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From the table, North- East has the least number of company (1) while, South-West has

the largest number (116). The target population also consists of 5 companies in North-

Central and 7 companies in North- West. South-South and South- East have 6 and 10

companies, respectively. Of the total number, 95 are industrial goods manufacturing

companies, and 50 consumer goods manufacturing companies spread in different parts of

the country including the FCT. The population targeting ensures that at least one

company is represented in each zone within the six geo-political zones of the country for

fair representation (appendix 2C).

The population cuts across ten (10) sub-sectors as against the entire 18 manufacturing

sub-sectors. These sub-sectors are: Building Materials, Construction, Emerging Market,

Food and Beverages, Textiles, Agriculture, Domestic Products, Automobile, Petroleum

and Healthcare (appendix 2A). The choice of the sub-sectors is in view of their strategic

contributions to the country’s economic growth and development (Borodo, 2008).

3.3.1 Sampling Techniques

The study employed both Cluster Sampling Method and Simple Random Sampling

Techniques. The Cluster Sampling Method is to allow for subdivision of the

manufacturing companies into six clusters in line with the country’s geo-political zones

as shown in Table 3 under the sample size. The Simple Random method is used in

selecting the samples. This is necessary as it gives every manufacturing company that

constitutes the study population equal chance of being selected.

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Large number of samples for the study was drawn from Lagos industrial zone being the

major commercial city of the country where larger percentages of the manufacturing

companies listed on the Nigeria stock exchange are located (appendix 2B). The

distribution of the population, which favours Lagos industrial zone, necessitates the use

of cluster sampling in identifying the sample of the manufacturing companies studied.

3.3.2 Sample Size

In coming up with the sample, effort was made to determine adequate sample size for the

study, taking into consideration the size of the population, the type of sampling design

and the degree of precision desired. In view of Asika’s (1991) and Ozigbo (2000)

contention that a sample that is either too large or too small may lead to getting results

that lack validity, they argues that a sample size of not less than 60 percent of the

population is adequate to obtain a valid result.

The sample of the study was drawn in such a manner that it ensures accuracy and

reliability of data and eliminates chances of bias in the selection process. The sampling is

done a way that every element of the population has an equal and independent chance of

being included by allowing randomness to prevail in the selection process. This is,

however, approximated below using the Yamane’s (1967:886) Sample Size Technique.

The Yamane’s formula is concerned with the application (or normal approximation) with

95% confidence level and 5% allowable error.

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Sample Size:

n = N

1+N (e) 2

Where:

n = the sample Size

N = the total population (95 industrial goods manufacturing companies + 50 consumer

goods manufacturing companies = 145)

e = error margin which is normally 5%

1 = constant

Therefore;

n = __145_____

1+145(0.05)2

n = __145_______

1+145(0.0025)

n = __145___

1+0.3625

n = __145___

1.3625

n = 106 Approximately

The geographical distribution of the sampled manufacturing companies is presented in

Table 3.

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Table 3: Geographical Distribution of the Manufacturing Companies

Cluster Geo-political Zones No. of

Companies

Percentage of

Total (%)

No. Sampled

1 North- Central 05 3.45 2

2 North – East 01 0.69 1

3 North - West 07 4.83 3

4 South - South 04 2.76 2

5 South – East 14 9.66 8

6 South – West 114 78.62 90

Total 145 100 106

Source: Generated by the Author from the Factbook of the NSE, 2011

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Table 3 shows the classification of the manufacturing companies into six different clusters

representing the six geo-political zones of the country; the North-Central (Benue, Kogi,

Kwara, Nasarawa, Niger, Plateau, and the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja) has five (5)

companies representing 3.45% of the population of the study of which two (2) companies

are selected to represent the proportion in that cluster. The North-East (Adamawa, Bauchi,

Borno, Gombe, Taraba and Yobe) has one (1) company representing 0.69% of the

population of the study. The only company in that cluster was selected in line with earlier

emphasis of choosing at least one company from each geo-political zone. The North-West

(Jigawa, Kaduna, Kano, Katsina, Kebbi, Sokoto and Zamfara) has seven (7) company

representing 4.83% of the population of the study out of which three (3) company are

randomly selected from that cluster.

The South-South (Akwa Ibom, Bayelsa, Cross River, Delta, Edo and Rivers) and South-

East (Abia, Anambra, Ebonyi, Enugu, and Imo) has four (4) companies and fourteen (14),

representing 2.76% and 9.66% respectively of which two (2) companies and 8 are

randomly selected. The South West (Ekiti, Lagos, Ogun, Ondo, Osun and Oyo) has the

largest number of companies that is one hundred and fourteen (114) companies,

representing 78.62% of the population which hitherto justifies the ninety (90) sampled

companies being randomly selected.

3.4 Sources of Data

The sources of data for the study involved both the primary and secondary sources as

discussed below:

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3.4.1 Primary Data

In this study the primary data we used were those that are sourced from the questionnaires,

structured interviews and focus group discussions. A well structured questionnaire with

multiple choice response scale (T-scale) and open-ended questions was designed for the

marketing managers or sales executive officers of the sampled manufacturing companies.

The purpose for using the questionnaire is based on the consideration that the level of

education of the respondents is high enough to understand properly the content. It is also

believed that the questionnaire schedule would yield not only higher rate of response but

enhance faster collection of data.

However, the questionnaire was divided into two sections (A&B). The first section dealt

with demographic data of the respondents such as gender, age, marital status, department,

and designation. The second section was designed to ask questions based on the

formulated hypothesis and objectives. This was made up of some structured questions

dealing with the general implementation of strategic marketing policies among

manufacturing companies in Nigeria. The questions specifically, dealt with the factors

influencing strategic marketing on the performance of Nigerian manufacturing

companies; it also ask some questions which help to ascertain whether there is a

significant relationship between strategic marketing and company performance.

In all the two sections of the questionnaire, 56 questions were asked with 7 questions

coming under section A and 49 questions coming under section B (appendix 1A). All the

questionnaires were distributed to the marketing managers or sales executive officers of

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the surveyed manufacturing companies. Chain of marketing intermediaries such as

wholesalers, retailers and agents in the six geo-political divisions of the country were

engaged in face-to-face interviews while some customers within the aforementioned

regions were also targeted for focus group discussion based on the objectives of the

study.

3.4.2 Secondary Data

In this study, data on financial summary of the surveyed manufacturing companies were

sourced from websites (www.nigerianstockexchange.com) of the companies and factbook

of the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE). The data generated are from the listed companies

on the Nigerian stock exchange as at December 2011. MAN’s documents on the

problems of the Nigerian manufacturing sector and the way forward, as well as some text

books and academic journals on the implementation of strategic marketing policies were

also consulted in the course of the study.

3.5 Methods of Data Collection

The method of data collection in this study involved multiple data collection sources

termed triangulations where data was gathered through structured questionnaire,

structured interview and focus group discussions. These are discussed below:

3.5.1 Structured Questionnaire

According to many scholars, in the use of survey strategy, the main instruments used are

self-administered/interviewer administered or structured/unstructured interviews and

http://www.nigerianstockexchange.com/

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questionnaire or a combination of both (Saunders et al 2000; Cooper & Schindler, 2006;

Malhotra & Birks, 2007). They further agree that generally the questionnaire can be used

for descriptive or explanatory study, and must have a good layout, unambiguous

questions, complete items, non-offensive but relevant items, logical arrangements of

items, and the ability to elicit willingness to answer by respondents. In this study, self-

administered, structured questionnaires were used to collect data from respondents

(appendix 1A). The questions seek for respondents’ feelings on the factors influencing

strategic marketing on the performance of manufacturing companies in Nigeria.

3.5.2 Structured Interview

As part of the procedure for data collection, an interview schedule targeted at the chains of

marketing intermediaries of the sampled manufacturing companies has been designed

(appendix 1B) which seeks for more information and authenticate the veracity of the

manufacturer’s claims on strategic marketing activities of manufacturing companies in

Nigeria. Specifically, selected marketing intermediaries within the six geo - political zones

of the country such as wholesalers, retailers, distributors or dealers and agents were

interviewed in the course of the study.

3.5.3 Focus Group Discussion

In this study, a focus group discussion was conducted with different targeted group of

customers of the sampled manufacturing companies to clarify service quality dimension in

the context of manufacturer’s claims. This is necessary in view of the fact that in a study

where certain constructs need to be clarified, most researchers recommend that qualitative

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techniques are appropriate, notably the use of projective techniques, focus group, in-depth

individual and group discussion, as well as observational techniques (Saunders et al 2000;

Cooper & Schindler, 2006; Malhotra & Birks, 2007).

Since we wanted to be clear as to whether the strategies being adopted by Nigerian

manufacturing companies in serving the customers are effective or ineffective, a focus

group interview is a veritable tool in the determination of such fact. The focus group

discussion questions focused on the factors responsible for general customer satisfaction

or dissatisfaction (appendix 1C). Purposive sampling was used as the criteria for the

selection of focus group members within the six geo-political zones of the country.

3.6 Methods of Data Analysis

The study analyzed the data collected using six different types of statistical techniques.

These are Chi-square to determine the relationships between the variables adopted for the

study, multiple regression Analysis, Pearson correlation coefficient, correlation analysis

to measure the strength of the relationship between the independent and dependent

variables. Furthermore, descriptive statistics was used to summarize large sets of

quantitative data in the study. These statistical tools are discussed below.

3.6.1 Chi-Square (χ2) Technique

Chi-square test was used to test the hypotheses of the study. The Chi-Square test

formula is given by:

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…………………………………………………………..………………… (3.1)

Source: (Greenwood & Nikulin, 1996)

Where:

χ2 Is the Chi-Square

Σ Is the Summation (Addition)

O Is the Observed frequency

E Is the Expected frequency

The Decision Rule:

1. Reject Ho at 95 percent level of confidence (alpha-a 0.05) if the computed

value of χ2 is greater than the critical (table value).

2. Accept Ho at 95 percent level of confidence (alpha-a 0.05) if the

computed value of χ2 is less than the critical (table value).

3.6.2 Descriptive Statistics

Under the descriptive statistics, proportion, percentage, mean, median and mode were

used for the analysis of the data collected through the administration of the research

questionnaires. The result obtained was used to support the five hypotheses of the study.

The formulae are:

1. Proportion (P) = f/N

2. Percentage (%) = (f/N) x 100

3. Mean = Σ χ/n

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4. Median is the middle number that divides population into two equal parts

5. Mode is the value which occurs most frequently

Where:

f is the frequency, the number of cases in any category

N is the number of cases in all categories

Σ χ is summation of group values

3.6.3 Pearson Correlation Coefficient

Pearson correlation coefficient (r) was used to test hypotheses one, two, three, four and

five of the study. The Pearson correlation is given by:

……………………………….. (3.2)

Where:

X is the score of SM variable

Y is the score of CP

n is the number of paired observations (that is the number of subject measured on both

variables).

ΣΧ is the sum of scores on SM variable

ΣΧ² is the sum of the squared scores on SM (each score is first squared and then the sum

of the squared scores is obtained)

(ΣΧ) ² is the square the sum of the scores of SM (the total of the SM score (ΣΧ) is first

calculated and then this total is squared)

ΣY is the sum of scores on CP variable.

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ΣY² is the sum of the squared scores on dependent variable (each score is first squared

and then the sum of the squared scores is obtained).

(ΣY)² is the square the sum of the scores of dependent variable (the total of the dependent

variable score (ΣΧ) is first calculated and then this total is squared)

ΣXY is the summation of the values of X (SM) and Y (CP)

3.6.4 Multiple Regression Analysis

The study used ordinary least square regression analysis, in order to establish that a set of

independent Strategic Marketing (SM) variables, on one hand explain a proportion of

variation on the dependent variables (company performance) on the other hand at a given

significant level (through a significance F-test and also to establish the relative predictive

importance of the independent variables (by comparing beta weights). The regression

analysis was computed using SPSS (Version 16.0).

A simple model was employed to estimate the combined effects of SM variables of five

major factors that influence strategic marketing activities namely; Implementation of

Marketing Policies and Strategies (IMPS), Fund inadequacy (FI), Attitudes of Marketing

Executives (AME), Environmental Uncertainties (EU), Absence or Collapse of

Infrastructure (ACI). Along the line of Kotler (2001), Hooley (2001), Akpan (2003) and

Vassinen (2006), the effectiveness of strategic marketing of manufacturing companies

could be estimated from the company’s ability to effectively deal with both the internal

and external environmental factors which will result to company performance. This is

expressed in this study as:

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SM = f (IMPS, FI, AME, EU, ACI) …………………………………….. (3.3)

CP = f (SM), which by expansion becomes:

CP = f (IMPS, FI, AME, EU, ACI). ……………………………………… (3.4)

The Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) method is to be used to estimate the relationship thus:

CP = α0 + α1 IMPS + α2 FI + α3 AME + α4 EU + α5 ACI + ᶓi ………… (3.5)

Where:

CP is company performance; this is captured based on market orientation, innovation,

marketing assets & capabilities, competitive advantage, market performance, ethical

issues and analysis of the environment (appendix 4).

IMPS are Implementation of Marketing Policies and Strategies (a dichotomous variable,

assign 1 if implementation is consistent with the supposed company policies and

strategies, otherwise 0).

FI is Fund inadequacy (a dichotomous variable, assign 1 if there is an inadequate fund,

otherwise 0).

AME is the Attitudes of Marketing Executives (a dichotomous variable, assign 1 if

marketing executives have been found to exhibit ethical standard in their marketing

practice, otherwise 0).

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EU is the Environmental Uncertainties (a dichotomous variable, assign 1 if marketing

executives possess the planning ability to deal with environmental uncertainties,

otherwise 0).

ACI is the Absence or Collapse of Infrastructure (a dichotomous variable, assign 1 if the

infrastructure needed for a business to thrive is made available by government, otherwise

0).

αi , i = 1, ……., 5 are the parameters to be estimated (is the average amount the

dependent variable increases when the independent variable increases by one unit and

other independents variables are held constant).

ei is an error term assumed to satisfy the standard OLS assumption.

3.6.4.1 Analysis of Variance (ANOVA)

The use of Analysis of Variance was adopted to find out whether there is a significant

relationship between strategic marketing and company performance. Specifically, we

used a blend of Scheffe’s (1953) statistic which assumes unequal sample size, equal

variances for complex comparisons, and Yemane’s (1967) that assumes unequal sample

size, unequal variances for pair-wise comparisons.

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3.7 Estimation of Strategic Marketing (SM) and Company Performance (CP)

Variables

So many marketing literatures have provided evidence of studies that used both

quantitative methods (Hunt & Morgan, 2001; Hooley & Greenley 2005) and qualitative

methods (Porter 1980 & Mayle, et al 2002) to measure the CP and SM research variables.

Since these techniques have empirically and theoretically yielded the desired results, this

study utilizes both. For the purpose of this study, qualitative technique is used to measure

SM variables and quantitative technique is used to measure CP variables. The

measurement of the two variables is further explained below.

3.7.1 Strategic Marketing Variables

Marketing and Accounting literature have provided evidence of studies (Porter 1980 &

Mayle, et al 2002) that used qualitative dichotomous scale of 0-1 to measure the presence

or absence of certain qualities of their research variables. However, this study employed

the same scale of 0-1 to measure the existence or absence of strategic marketing activities

in some manufacturing firms in Nigeria (appendix 5A). This is consistent with Akpan

(2003) and Al-khatib (2005) who used the same scale to measure strategic marketing

variables.

The variables under study for the regression analysis involved five (5) operational

predictors of company’s strategic marketing activities namely implementation of

marketing policies & strategies (IMPS), fund In-adequacy (FI), environmental

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(uncertainties) scanning & analysis (EU), attitude of marketing executives (AME) and

absence or collapse of basic infrastructure (ACI).

3.7.2 Company Performance (CP) Variables

The CP variables are measured using net profit ratios extracted from the financial

summary of the surveyed manufacturing companies (appendix 5C). Several studies have

indicated the usefulness of ratios in measuring company performance and evaluating the

overall strength of a company’s systems and structures (Kunz and Pfaff, 2002; and Hebb

and Macleean, 2006). For example, Kunz and Pfaff (2002) used performance ratios to

measure motivation and commitment of employees. Similarly, Kinney (2000) and Mcvay

(2005) used earning quality (trend of profitability and value of shares) to measure

weaknesses in company performance. However, in this study profitability ratio was used

to gauge the performance of the companies where net profit of the sampled firms for

periods 2006 to 2011 were evaluated and logged as a proxy for company performance

(appendix 5B). Gross profit margin ratio, net profit margin or net profit percentage and

operating profit percentage, return on assets and return on equity of the firms were

evaluated. The ratios were calculated using the following formula:

Profit Margin = Gross Profit/Sales

Profit Percentage = Operating Income/Sales

Return on Assets = Net income/Sales x Sales/T. Assets = Net Income/T.Assets

Return on Equity Ratio = Net Income/ Owner’s Equity

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3.8 Credibility of the Research

Research studies needs to possess the characteristic of credibility. Thus both the end and

the means must not only be sincere but right (Saunders et al 2007). In this study efforts

were made to ensure credibility in terms of validity and reliability which are carried out

using cronbach’s Alpha reliability test.

3.8.1 Cronbach’s Alpha

Cronbach's α (alpha) is a coefficient of reliability. It is commonly used as a measure of

the internal consistency or reliability of a psychometric (intelligent & standard) test score

for a sample of examinees. It was first named alpha by Lee Cronbach in 1951.

Develles (1991) defined Cronbach's α as:

…………………………. (3.6)

Where:

K - is the number of components (K-items or test lets)

- the variance of the observed total test scores and

- the variance of component i for the current sample of persons.

Alternatively, the Cronbach's α can also be defined as

…………………………. (3.7)

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Where:

K- is as above, the average variance, and the average of all covariance between the

components across the current sample of persons.

The standardized Cronbach's alpha can be defined as:

…………………………. (3.8)

Where:

K- is as above and the mean of the K (K − 1) / 2 non-redundant correlation coefficients

(i.e., the mean of an upper triangular, or lower triangular, correlation matrix).

Cronbach's α is related conceptually to the Spearman- Brown prediction formula. Both

arise from the basic classical test theory result that the reliability of test scores can be

expressed as the ratio of the true-score and total-score (error plus true score) variances:

………..……………………... (3.9)

Theoretically, alpha varies from zero to 1, since it is the ratio of two variances.

Empirically, however, alpha can take on any value less than or equal to 1, including

negative values, although only positive values make sense. Higher values of alpha are

more desirable. Some professionals as a rule of thumb, require a reliability of 0.70 or

higher (obtained on a substantial sample) before they will use an instrument. Obviously,

this rule should be applied with caution when α has been computed from items that

systematically violate its assumptions. Furthermore, the appropriate degree of reliability

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depends upon the use of the instrument. For example, an instrument designed to be used

as part of a tests may be intentionally designed to be as short as possible, and therefore

could be less reliable. Other situations may require extremely precise measures with very

high reliabilities.

Internal consistency

Cronbach's alpha will generally increase as the inter-correlations among test items

increase, and is thus known as an internal consistency estimate of reliability of test

scores. Because inter-correlations among test items are maximized when all items

measure the same construct, Cronbach's alpha is widely believed to indirectly indicate the

degree to which a set of items measures a single one-dimensional latent construct.

However, the average inter-correlation among test items is affected by skew just like any

other average.

3.8.2 Pilot Testing

Saunders et al (2000), Cooper and Schindler (2006) and Malhotra & Birks (2007) agree

that in any research, it is expedient as a matter of reliability and validity check that the

questionnaire should be pre-tested (pilot survey) before final administration; there are so

many objectives to be achieved from the exercise. The main objective of the pilot survey

is to develop a working methodology for the construction of company performance

indicators arising from the implementation of various marketing strategies by

manufacturing companies in Nigeria. This methodology should be practical and will have

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a sound scientific basis, reflecting recent research insights into the area of strategic

marketing and its measurement.

The second objective was to develop and conduct a Pilot survey, based on the proposed

methodology. The purpose of the Pilot survey was to test the methodology and its

underlying modeling, and to propose a preliminary set of indicators. Both objectives were

interlinked. The analysis of the Pilot survey’s outcomes is expected to unravel some

adaptations to the methodology developed in the first stage. The report is also intended to

include an appropriate survey framework (i.e. questionnaires, population and sampling,

survey methods, etc.), a proposal for the statistical methods to be used, and methods for

analyzing the factors influencing strategic marketing on the performance of


As part of the pilot test for the study, a preliminary draft of the questionnaire was given to

focus group members to test the clarity and meaningfulness of the questions. After that the

final questionnaire was given to two academic experts in the study of marketing to assess

its content and construction. Then, it was pre-tested on a sample of twelve (12)

manufacturing companies selected by simple random method. This small size was guided

by the suggestion by Fink (2003, in Saunders et al, 2007) that the minimum of ten (10)

members for pre-testing is adequate. Finally, after adjustments were made to get more

effective instruments, the questionnaire was administered to the target population through

personal contact by the researcher. They were first informed of the purpose, assured

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anonymity and confidentiality of responses. Respondents were given the questionnaire to

fill; we left it to them for 2 weeks, after which they submitted the questionnaire to us.

Out of the twenty five (25) questionnaires that were administered for the pilot study,

twenty (20) constituting 80% response rate were collected. Out of this, there were 15

marketing managers of the manufacturing companies selected for the pilot test within

Lagos Industrial zone which cut across various manufacturing sub-sector, while 5 are sales

executives of some of the surveyed manufacturing companies. The result of the pilot

analysis reveals that there is a fit in the applicability of the proposed instruments and

measures of analysis which can help in obtaining a valid and reliable research outcomes.

Even though, some modifications particularly with regards to the proposed analytical tools

were made; (e.g the proposed use of factor analysis to analyze the data was found to have

been inappropriate due to the nature of the sample size which is considered to be low for

such analysis).

Furthermore, a detailed statistical analysis was conducted to define marketing strategy

implementation model that is ideally common to the 10 manufacturing sub-sectors

covered in the study. The main statistical analyses conducted in this phase included

consistency tests on the initial model using Cronbach's alpha method as indicated in

Table 4 and validation of the indirect measurement of expectations. This was conducted

between the periods of 11th February and 10th March 2011.

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Table 4: Cronbach’s Alpha Reliability Test for all Items

S/N Dimensions Cronbach’s Alpha No. of

Items

1. Market Orientation 0.80

14

2. Innovation Orientation 0.72 4

3. Marketing Assets & Capabilities 0.79 13

4. Sustainable Competitive Advantage 0.72 2

5. Market Performance 0.65 6

6. Ethical Issues 0.72 4

7. Environmental Factors 0.82 5

All other items (excluding Bio data)

0.89 48

Source: Researcher’s Survey Data from SPSS output

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Table 4 shows the reliability assessment of our indicator variables using Cronbach Alpha.

The Cronbach coefficients of the items in the instrument are above the rule of thumb cut-

off mark of 0.70 (Hatcher, 1994) and, therefore, the items are internally related to the

factors they are expected to measure. The results of the Cronbach’s alpha generated

using the SPSS output (Appendix 2D) for all dimensions are summarized in Table 4.

The reliability test table above indicates that all the items for each dimension are

high except ‘Market Performance’ dimension which was 0.65 which is even close to

0.7, the widely accepted limit for high reliability test.

The validity of the variables measured was already confirmed in previous studies relating

to company marketing performance (Sullivan & Abela, 2007; Rogers, 2003; Srivastava &

Reibstein, 2005; Miller & Cioffi, 2004; Wang et al., 2004; Vision Edge, 2007) and

competence development tasks (Lindgreen & Hendrisson, 2002; Johnsson & Hurria,

2003; Hiermann & Hofferer, 2005; Zeb-Obipi, 2007). However, we reaffirm the

applicability of the measures in the present study using Cronbach Alpha to measure the

reliability of the concepts of the study variables. Coefficient Alpha is one of the most

widely used measures of internal consistency reliability in social and management

sciences (Hatcher, 1994).

In addition to the above the following steps were also taken to ensure valid and reliable

data collection and analysis process:

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1. The right target population was identified, i.e. listed manufacturing companies on the

Nigeria stock exchange, customers and middlemen.

2. The representativeness of the sample is ensured since there was adequate representation

of the sample, based on the listed companies, cutting across the six geopolitical zones of

the country.

3. The sampling method was appropriate since respondents are selected through cluster

sampling method and simple random sampling techniques to remove participant errors

and biases.

4. Structured questionnaire with likert-scales was used and coded with numerical system

to remove errors resulting from unstructured answers.

5. In administering the instruments, the respondents were assured of anonymity and

confidentiality so that they could express their real feelings to remove subject/participant

biases.

6. Data was entered using SPSS (version 16.0) with much care. Missing values were

discarded because they were significantly small.

7. It has been suggested that to ensure validity and reliability of instrument, the

researcher must have adequate knowledge of the context (industry) being studied

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(Saunders et al, 2007). For this, the researcher is a long term marketing researcher with

the knowledge of the Nigerian manufacturing sector and marketing theory and practice

spanning a 12-year period which is adequate to have a clear understanding of the

happenings within the industry.

3.9 Methodological Difficulties

Most researches of this nature are not without some methodological difficulties such as

the reliability/validity of data, getting the right sampling procedure, the population target,

the method of data collection and analysis, as well as in-depth analysis of the generated

data and host of other methodological problems which makes a research not only difficult

but useless. The most pertinent methodological difficulties of the study include:

Firstly, the distribution of the population favours Lagos, Kano and Enugu industrial zones

which make data collection exercise of the adopted sample, a difficult task due to the

nature of shuttling within the geo-political zones of the country to gather preliminary

information about the population coupled with the delay in getting the questionnaires

completed at the right time, this are serious limitations of the methodology.

Secondly, the difficulties in classifying the various sub-sectors of the Nigerian

manufacturing sectors into 18 sub-sectors and the selection of only 10 out of the 18 sub-

sectors to form the sample size of the study. Thirdly, the difficulties in drafting the data

collection instruments, particularly the questionnaire and the interview schedules, such

that the instruments address the objectives, research questions and hypothesis of the

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study. Finally, the difficulties in understanding the appropriate methods, statistical tools

and measurement of some key variables employed for the study based on the theoretical

differences.

However, in spite of these problems, effort has been made to overcome the

methodological difficulties by trying to be more realistic in the conduct of the entire

research. The problems will not in any way affect or undermine the validity and

reliability of the findings of the study.

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CHAPTER FOUR

RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS

4.1 Introduction

This chapter consists of three parts: Data presentation, data analysis and discussion. Data

presentation covers data preparation, descriptive data on respondents’ characteristics,

response rate, and tabular presentations of variables using descriptive statistics on strategic

marketing activities. The data analysis was conducted using Pearson correlation

coefficient analysis, multiple regression analysis and test of hypotheses. The discussion is

mainly on the result of the regression analysis and test of hypotheses, results of major

findings were scientifically interpreted via values of the predictors in line with the

objectives of the study.

4.2 Data Preparation

The data obtained for this study, was both qualitative and quantitative in nature. Therefore,

Microsoft Excel and Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS) are used for the data

entry and analysis. The questionnaire consisted almost entirely of closed pre-coded

questions and some attitude scales. The designed questionnaire helps generate the right

information on the basis of the following principles:

1. The questionnaire incorporates the latent variables, drivers and manifest variables that

have been identified following the development of the provisional model.

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2. The questionnaire cuts across the ten (10) sub-sectors of the Nigerian manufacturing

industry, with the same latent variables and drivers in all sectors. Some manifests

variables have been rephrased to be specifically adapted to each sector

3. The main questionnaire is common to all sectors and the questions for the latent

variables are applicable to all the sub-sectors.

4. The standard demographics that are only relevant to the study which have been

included in the questionnaire include sex, age, marital status, educational qualification,

department, designation and years of working experience.

5. Coded entries were checked visually for any obvious errors. For instance, one company

submitted three responses from different managers, which were identical; this was

excluded from the analysis. Internal consistency checks were also conducted which

revealed further errors in the entry and in the responses.

However, a likert-scale of 1 to 5 ranging from strongly agreed to strongly disagree; in

some cases, strongly ineffective to strongly effective and in some instances irrelevant to

very relevant has been used in the study. This scale is recommended by most experts and

also used in other performance studies models such as the American Consumer

Satisfaction Index (ACSI) model and the Porter Generic Model (1980). Most experts

recommend using a numerical 5-point scale for consumer satisfaction.

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Table 5: Descriptive Data of Respondents

S/N Characteristics Respondents’ Category Frequency Percent

1. Gender Male 78 81.25

Female 18 18.75

Total 96 100.0

2. Age 26 – 35 years 36 37.5

36 – 45 years 34 35.42

46 – 55 years 26 27.08

Total 96 100.0

3. Marital Status Single 36 37.5

Married 60 62.5

Total 96 100.0

4. Educational

Qualification

Degree 53 55.21

Post-graduate 25.99 27.08

Diploma 8.96 9.38

Others 8.0 8.33

Total 96 100.0

5. Respondents’

Department

Marketing 63 65.6

General Administration 33 34.4

Total 96 100.0

6. Respondents’

Designation

Marketing Manager 70 72.9

Sales Executive 26 27.1

Total 96 100.0

7. Respondents’

Working

Experience

Less than one 4 4.2

1 – 5 44 45.8

6 – 10 16 16.7

11 – 15 21 21.9

16 – Above 11 11.5

Total 96 100.0

Source: Survey Data, 2011

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4.3 Respondents Characteristics:

Since the characteristics of the respondents influence results, we therefore present the

socio- economic characteristics of the respondents in Table 5. As can be seen on the table,

information on seven (7) different characteristics of respondents that are relevant to the

study were collected and interpreted. Information on respondents’ gender, age, marital

status, educational qualification, department, designation and working experience were

collected to help in our analysis.

The respondents’ gender as displayed in Table 5 indicates that the males (81.25%)

were more than the females (18.75%) which shows that males have the dominance as

marketing managers or sales executives in the surveyed manufacturing companies.

Figure 4 shows that majority of the respondents who gave their responses fell within the

economically active group, of between the ages of 26 and 45 constituting 38% and

35% respectively. While the remaining constitute 27.08% made up of respondents

between 46 and 55, and above 55 years. This, no doubt, would further justify our results

since most of the responses were presumed to be emanating from those with the necessary

work experience privy to the knowledge of the research problem.

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Figure 4: Age of the Respondents

131

On the same Table 5, the marital status of the respondents indicates that those who are

married constitute the largest percentage of respondents (62.5 percent). This shows the

existence of marital stability in the study area and there is the likelihood of being

responsive to the yearnings and aspirations of both the organization and customers. Those

that are single constitute 37.5 percent who are believed to be less involved in managerial

decision making.

The education levels were evenly distributed. Virtually all the respondents were educated,

with 55.21% having at least Bachelor’s degree certificate. 27.08% have their Postgraduate

Degrees. Diploma holders were about 9.38% while others with certificates other than the

ones mention earlier (at least education up to Post-secondary level and those with

HND and Doctoral level of education) were about 8.33%.These statistics further indicate

that most of the respondents had higher education while a relatively small number had at

least high school education necessary for the respondents to have an informed knowledge

and adequate information on the subject of the study in their response decisions.

On the respondents’ departments, the table shows that out of the 96 total respondents, 63

representing 66 percent are from the marketing department while, 33 representing 34

percent are in the general administration department of the surveyed manufacturing

companies. This implies that questionnaires were mainly administered to the marketing

and administrative units of the sampled companies.

132

The respondents’ designations as depicted in the table show that out of the total targeted

group of respondents (96 respondents), 70 or 72.9 percent are marketing managers of the

sampled companies while 26 or 27.1 percent are sales executives. This indicates that both

the two targeted groups were involved in the provision of the right marketing information

on the implementation of strategic marketing in the surveyed manufacturing companies in

Nigeria. However, more importantly was the fact that majority of the opinion volunteered

on the implementation of strategic marketing in the surveyed manufacturing companies in

Nigeria would virtually come from the marketing managers hence, making it reliable and

hands-on.

Finally, the table shows that majority of the marketing and sales executives have different

working experiences ranging from 1-5 years (46 percent) while those that put in 6-15

years of service accounted for 38.6 percent. Those above 15 years of service accounted for

11.5 percent while those with less than 1 year accounted for just 4.2 percent. The

implication to the study is that marketing managers or sales executives with working

experience ranging between 1-5 years are more involved in the implementation of

strategic marketing policies than others.

4.4 Response Rate

A total of 106 questionnaires were administered out of which 96 were returned which are

used for the analysis in the study. The response rate is presented in a tabular form as can

be seen in Table 6.

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Table 6: Response Rate

Designation of the respondents where applicable

Valid

Respondents Number of

Questionnaires

Administered

Number of

Questionnaires

Retrieved

Percent Valid

Percent

Cumulati

ve

Percent

Marketing

Managers

78 70 72.9 72.9 72.9

Sales

Executives

28 26 27.1 27.1 100

Total 106 96 100.0 100.0


134

Table 6 shows that out of the one hundred and six (106) total numbers of questionnaires

that were administered for the study, ninety six (96) constituting 91% response rates were

collected. Out of these, 70 of them representing 73% were marketing managers of the

manufacturing companies selected for the study cutting across various manufacturing sub-

sectors, while 26 representing 27% were sales executives of some of the surveyed

manufacturing concerns. The breakdown further shows that most of the respondents

(63%) were in the consumer goods industry, 24% in the industrial goods manufacturing

industry and marketing intermediaries, 4% and 9% were customers and other

professionals respectively. The significance of the result above is that the quality of the

expected responses is to a considerable extent dependable, since majority of the

respondents are very familiar with the area of the study.

4.5 Percentage Distribution of Responses

In a bid to have a clear understanding of responses in line with the study objectives, an

analysis of both graphical and percentage distribution of responses in a tabular form were

used to demonstrate the pattern of responses on each variable.

135

Table 7: The Relevance of the Implementation of Strategic Marketing to the Performance

of Manufacturing Companies

Valid

Response Frequency Percent Valid

Percent

Cumulative

Percent

Very Relevant 69 71.9 71.9 71.9

Relevant 27 28.1 28.1 100.0

Total 96 100.0 100.0


136

Table 7 shows the frequency and percentage distribution of responses on the relevance of

the implementation of strategic marketing to the performance manufacturing companies

in Nigeria. From the table it could be seen that majority of those interviewed (69) or 72

percent of the respondents were of the view that Implementation of effective strategic

marketing policies is very relevant to the performance of manufacturing companies in

Nigeria.

However, about 27 or 28 percent of the respondents agree that it is relevant as such

marketing companies should pursue it with vigor so as to achieve some level of company

performance that will lead to effectiveness and sustainable competitive advantage. All the

respondents interviewed agreed on the appropriateness of the study believing that it will

provide the much-needed guide for marketing practitioners in Nigeria.

Figure 5 shows that the percentage distribution of responses on the factors that influence

strategic marketing among manufacturing companies in Nigeria. From the figure it was

shown that 37.50 percent of the total responses were of the view that operational

marketing performance and growth is the major factor influencing strategic marketing

amongst companies in Nigeria, while 27.08 percent of the total respondents attributed it

to resource base view of the firm. The result further indicates that 17.71 percent of the

respondents believe that competitive environment and marketing mix decision were at

par in influencing strategic marketing amongst Nigerian manufacturing companies.

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Figure 5: Percentage Distribution of Responses on the factors that influence Strategic

Marketing

138

Table 8: The effects of funds Inadequacy on Strategic Marketing Activities of

Manufacturing Companies in Nigeria

Response Frequency Percent

It cripples the operation of the company 17 17.71

It result to stagnation of business 36 37.50

It result to failure in competition 7.99 8.33

It dampens employees morale 35 36.46

Total 96 100


139

Table 8 shows the frequency and percentage distribution of responses on how inadequacy

of funds affects the strategic marketing activities of manufacturing companies in Nigeria.

From the table, 17 respondents or 17.71 percent said that it cripples the entire operations

of the companies while 36 respondents representing 37.50 percent said it would result in

stagnation or decline of the businesses. More importantly, the result shows that 36.46

percent agreed it would lead to a fall in workers morale to work, the immediate

implication of the result is that fund inadequacy can create down-tooling amongst

workers which would invariably lead to non-growth (i.e. low level of productivity) of the

business (stagnation).

Table 9 indicates that the poor performance of most manufacturing companies in Nigeria

is largely due to poor motivational incentives by management which result in negative

attitude that affects performance. This is followed by the get-rich-quick syndrome as

exhibited by some company executives. It is important to state here that all the factors

enlisted have in one way or another contributed negatively to the performance of

company. About 31 percent of the respondents were of the view that a combination of

attitudinal problems such as poor motivational incentives, the get- rich-quick syndrome

and employees’ psychological factor were the major problem which can impact

negatively on company performance.

140

Table 9: Attitudes of Marketing Executives and its Impact on Company Performance

Response Frequency Percent

Poor motivational incentives 43 44.79

Syndrome of get rich quick 14.44 15.05

Employee psychological factor 8.96 9.33

All of the above 29.60 30.83

Total 96 100


141

Table 10: Major Factors Responsible for Environmental Uncertainties

Valid

Factors Frequency Percent Valid

Percent

Cumulative

Percent

Socio-

cultural/Economic

26 27.1 27.1 27.1

Legal/Political 44 45.8 45.8 72.9

Others 26 27.1 27.1 100.0

Total 96 100.0 100.0


142

Table 10 shows the frequency and percentage distribution of responses on the major

factors responsible for environmental uncertainties which affect the activities of

manufacturing companies in Nigeria. From the table, 26 respondents representing 27.1

percent of the total responses identified the major factor as socio-economic, while 44

respondents or 45.8 percent were of the view that legal/political factor is the major factor.

Other combined factors accounted for 27.1 percent only. This means that socio-economic

factor poses greatest threat to environmental challenges in doing business in Nigerian

manufacturing sub-sector.

Table 11 shows the frequency and percentage distribution of responses on the factors

responsible for the absence or collapse of infrastructure in Nigeria. From the table, 52

respondents or 54.2 percent identified government insensitivity to the well being of its

citizens as a major determinant factor responsible for the absence or collapse of

infrastructural facilities in Nigeria. Similarly, negative attitude of Nigerians such as

corruption, vandalism, tribalism etc was equally identified as important to determining

the level of absence or collapse of infrastructure in the Nigerian manufacturing sub-

sector. Of the total responses, all the factors combined accounted for 36.5 percent impact

on performance of the basic infrastructure which is necessary for any company

performance.

143

Table 11: Factors Responsible for the Absence or Collapse of Infrastructure

Frequency Percent Valid

Percent

Cumulative

Percent

Valid Government

insensitivity to the

plight of it citizens

52 54.2 54.2 54.2

Negative attitude of

Nigerians

9 9.4 9.4 63.5

All of the above 35 36.5 36.5 100.0

Total 96 100.0 100.0


144

4.6 Descriptive Statistics on Strategic Marketing Activities

As part of the analysis a descriptive statistics on key strategic marketing issues were

conducted to justify the relevance or the level of agreement amongst the respondents

understudy. This is presented in Table 12.

Table 12 shows a descriptive statistics for each of the study construct. Each variable

under study has likert-scale of 1 to 5 ranging from strongly agreed to strongly disagree; in

some cases, highly ineffective to strongly effective and in some instances irrelevant to

very relevant. From the table, the minimum and maximum value for the significant

relationship between strategic marketing and company performance is 4 to 5, respectively

and the Mean and Standard Deviation is 4.7 and 0.47, respectively. The result shows that

there was no variety of opinion on that variable and the low standard deviation (0.47)

signify that most respondents express close opinion.

Strategic Marketing Activities are said to be more effective and result-oriented at the

maturity stage as compared to other stages of the product life cycle, the minimum and

maximum range from 1 to 5 with Mean of 4.1 and the Standard Deviation of 0.98,

respectively. The result shows that there was a variety of opinion on that variable and the

high standard deviation (0.98) signifies that the opinions are widespread.

“How effective is the advertising Media” ranges from the minimum and maximum of 3 to

5 and the mean and standard deviation is 4.3 and 0.56, respectively. The result shows that

145

there was variety of opinion on that variable and the moderate standard deviation (0.56)

signifies that the data are moderately spread.

On whether the modes and channels of distribution of goods to customers are effective,

the minimum and maximum value ranges from 1 to 5 and the mean and Standard

Deviation is 3.10 and 0.98, respectively. The result shows that there was variety of

opinion on that variable and the high standard deviation (0.98) signifies that the data are

widespread.

The study identified several modes and channels of distribution of goods by

manufacturing companies in Nigeria. Among the modes are road, air, sea, rail and others

that facilitates such movements of goods from the point of the production line to the point

of use. From the finding, most of the Nigerian manufacturing companies distribute their

products using road means of transportation with very few of the companies in the

construction, conglomerate and industrial/domestic products sub-sector complimenting

their distribution system with sea and air means and in some rare cases using rail means

of transportation.

Findings on the most effective channel of distribution show varying degree of opinion in

the sub-sectors. The petroleum sub-sector identified manufacturer-wholesaler-retailer-

agent- consumer as the most effective channel for the distribution of petroleum products

in the country while, those in the automobile sub-sector chose manufacturer-retailer-

agent- consumer as the most effective channel, conglomerate subsector opted for

146

manufacturer-wholesaler-consumer. There are some companies in the healthcare,

agriculture, construction, food & beverages subsector that combines both direct and

indirect channels by selling through chains of marketing intermediaries or directly to

consumers. This is consistent with the research findings of Onu (2000) and Agbonifoh

and Iyayi (1999). The study however, shows that effectiveness of a channel of

distribution is determined by the nature of the product, financial position of the

manufacturer and the variety of the product to be sold.

Relevance of the implementation of strategic marketing policies to the performance of

manufacturing companies range from 4 to 5 and the Mean and Standard Deviation is 4.7

and 0.45, respectively. The result shows that there was no variety of opinion on that

variable and the low standard deviation (0.45) signifies that most respondents express

close opinion.

147

Table 12: Descriptive Statistics on Strategic Marketing Activities

Variable under study

N Minimum Maximum Mean

Std.

Deviation

Decision

1. Do you agree that there is

a significant relationship

between strategic

marketing & company

performance?

96 4.00 5.00 4.6771 0.4701

Agreed

2. Strategic Marketing

Activities are said to be

more effective and result-

oriented at the maturity

stage as compared to

other stages of the

product life cycle.

96 1.00 5.00 4.0937 0.9849

Agreed

3. How effective is your

advertising Media?

96 3.00 5.00 4.3021 0.5642

Effective

4. Are the modes and

channels of distribution

of goods to customers

effective?

96 1.00 5.00 3.9792 0.9839

Effective

5. How relevant is strategic

marketing to the

manufacturing sector and

marketing activities as a

whole?

96 4.00 5.00 4.7292 0.4467

Relevant

Source: Generated using SPSS output

148

4.7 Focus Group Discussion (FGD) Results

After gathering data from the marketing managers and sales executives of the surveyed

manufacturing firms, a Focus Group Discussion (FGD) was conducted with different

targeted groups of customers to clarify service quality dimension in the context of

manufacturer’s claims (appendix 1C). This is necessary as we have pointed out earlier in

the work, to enable us clarify strategy implementation issues in the context of

manufacturers’ claims. Thus, the focus group discussion focused on the factors

responsible for general customer satisfaction or dissatisfaction in line with the objectives

of the study

Cooper & Schindler (2006) and Malhotra & Birks (2007) emphasized that the appropriate

number of a focus group should be between five (5) and twelve (12) people and the

people should be purposefully selected, while the discussion or interview should last for

usually an hour or two hours. It is In view of this that focus group discussions were

held in various geo-political zones in the country and the summary of the discussions is

presented below:

149

Table 13: Summary of the Focus Groups Discussions Held in the Six Geo-political

Zones of the Country

Sub-Sector Geo-political Zone No. of Participants

(Customers)

Building Materials (BM) NE 05

Construction (CO) NC 08

Emerging Markets (EM) SW 10

Food & Beverages (FB) NW 06

Textiles (TE) SE 08

Agriculture (AG) SS 06

Domestic Products (DP) NW 07

Automobile (AU) SW 09

Petroleum (PE) SW 08

Healthcare (HC) NC 08

Total 75


Table 13 shows the summary of the focus groups discussions held in the six geo-political

zones of the country. The discussions drew a total of 75 participants (customers) which

150

cut across the ten sub-sectors of the Nigerian manufacturing industry; these include

building materials, construction, emerging markets, food and beverages, textiles,

agriculture, domestic products and automobile, as well as petroleum and healthcare. The

participants were selected using purposive sampling technique. This was because the

participants had to satisfy the criteria of eligibility before they could be selected.

As part of the criteria for the selection of the focus group members, active customers with

adequate knowledge of strategic marketing activities of the manufacturing companies

were invited across the six geo-political zones. We invited 5 customers from the building

materials sub-sector in the north- east; 8 from the construction sub-sector in the north

central, 10 from the emerging markets sub-sector in the south-west and 6 from the food

and beverages sub-sector in the north-west. Others include textile sub-sector in the south-

east (8), agriculture sub-sector in the south-south (6), domestic products sub-sector in the

north-west, automobile sub-sector in the south-west (9), healthcare sub-sector in the north-

central (8) and another 8 from petroleum sub-sector in the south-west. The discussions

were held from the 5th to 23rd December 2011 and lasted for sixty (60) minutes with

participants in each group.

In a bid to get an outcome on the focus group discussion which will help support our

research findings, descriptive statistics was used to analyze the satisfaction variables with

a view to ascertain whether the customers are satisfied or dissatisfied with the marketing

strategies as adopted by the manufacturing companies in Nigeria.

151

Table 14: Descriptive Statistics for Customer Satisfaction Variables

Variable N Minimum Maximum Mean Std.

Deviation

Decision

Product Quality 75 2.00 5.00 3.4667 .82746 Satisfied

Price 75 1.00 5.00 3.8267 1.07015 Satisfied

Place/Distribution 75 4.00 5.00 4.1067 .31077 Satisfied

Promotion 75 1.00 5.00 3.1733 1.32923 Satisfied

Valid N (listwise) 75

Source: Generated using SPSS 16.0 Output

152

Table 14 shows a descriptive statistics for customer satisfaction variables. Each variable

under study has likert-scale of 1 to 5 ranging from very unsatisfied to very satisfy.

Customers were asked to rate their satisfaction with respect to manufacturers’ product

quality, pricing dimension, distribution and promotion, descriptive statistics were used to

measure the satisfaction rating. Generally, the satisfaction rating signified that the

targeted groups of customers were satisfied with the products quality, their pricing

dimension, effectiveness of the distribution system and promotional strategies.

From the table, the minimum and maximum value for satisfaction on product quality is 2

to 5 and the Mean and Standard Deviation is 3.4 and 0.82, respectively. The result shows

that there was variety of opinion on that variable and the high standard deviation (0.82)

signifies that the data are widespread; statistically, the high standard deviation implies

that satisfaction on product quality is very high.

Price ranges from 1 to 5 and the Mean and Standard Deviation is 3.8 and 1.07,

respectively. The result shows that there was variety of opinion on that variable and the

high standard deviation (1.07) signifies that the data are widespread; statistically, the high

standard deviation implies that satisfaction on the pricing dimension is very high.

Place or distribution range from 4 to 5 and the Mean and Standard Deviation is 4.10 and

0.31, respectively. The result shows that there was no variety of opinion on that variable

and the low standard deviation (0.31) signifies that most respondents express close

opinion; statistically, the low standard deviation implies that satisfaction on the

153

effectiveness of the distribution system of the surveyed manufacturing firms can be

described as very low.

Promotion range from 1 to 5 and the Mean and Standard Deviation is 3.1 and 1.32,

respectively. The result shows that there was variety of opinion on that variable and the

high standard deviation (1.32) signifies that the data are widespread; statistically, the high

standard deviation implies that satisfaction on promotional effectiveness of the surveyed

manufacturing firms is very high.

Most of the targeted customers for the focus group discussion in the six geo-political

zones of the country expressed similar satisfaction with the qualities, pricing dimensions,

distribution and promotional strategies of the products produced by manufacturing firms

in Nigeria except in cases where a significant percentage of customer groups in the

building materials and petroleum sub-sectors complain of incessant price hikes,

particularly on prices of cement, fuel and kerosene. Other complaints include sub-

standard health facilities in the healthcare sub-sector and ineffective distribution system

in the petroleum and agric sub-sectors which is marred by diversions and hoardings of the

products.

4.8 Structured Interview Results

A structured interview targeted at the chains of marketing intermediaries of the surveyed

manufacturing companies was conducted (Appendix 1B). The interviews help to support

both the questionnaire findings and the focus group discussion outcomes.

154

Table 15: Targeted and Number of Participants for the Structured Interview with

Marketing Intermediaries in the Six Geo-political Zones of the Country

Sub-Sector Geo-

political

Zones

No. of Targeted

Participants

(Marketing

Intermediaries)

No. of Participants

(Marketing

Intermediaries)

Building Materials (BM) NE 09 08

Construction (CO) NC 12 10

Emerging Markets (EM) SW 13 13

Food & Beverages (FB) NW 12 10

Textiles (TE) SE 09 08

Agriculture (AG) SS 12 08

Domestic Products (DP) NW 10 08

Automobile (AU) SW 13 12

Petroleum (PE) SW 12 11

Healthcare (HC) SW 11 06

Total 113 94


Marketing intermediaries with track records in the marketing of manufacturer’s products

within the six geo-political zones of the country such as wholesalers, retailers,

distributors/dealers and agents were interviewed in the course of the study. Just like the

FGD, participants for the structured interview were selected using purposive sampling

technique.

155

Table 15 shows the targeted and number of participants for the structured interview

conducted with marketing intermediaries in the six geo-political zones of the country.

From the table, a total of 113 marketing intermediaries were targeted at for the

interview. Out of which 94 participated, this accounted for 83 percent of the total

responses. The interview, just like the focus group discussion, also cut across the ten

manufacturing sub-sectors namely building materials, construction, emerging markets,

food and beverages, textiles, agriculture, domestic products and automobile, as well as

petroleum and healthcare.

In the course of the interview, 8 marketing intermediaries from the building materials

sub-sector in the north- east participated; 10 from the construction sub-sector in the

north-central were interviewed, 13 were interviewed in the south-west from the

emerging markets sub-sector and 10 from the food and beverages sub-sector in the

north-west. Others interviewed include the textile sub-sector in the south-east (8),

agriculture sub-sector in the south-south (8), domestic products sub-sector in the north-

west (8), automobile sub-sector in the south-west (12), healthcare sub-sector in the

south-west (6) and another 11 from the petroleum sub-sector in the south-west. The

structured interview was conducted from 21st to 30th November, 2011 and lasted for

thirty (30) minutes with each target group. South- west was targeted more than the other

regions in view of the larger concentration of manufacturing companies as the region

alone, accounted for over 72 percent of the sampled companies considered for the study.

The summary of the Structured Interview Result Conducted with Marketing

Intermediaries in the Six Geo-political Zones of the Country are presented in Table 16.

156

Table 16: Interview Result Conducted with Marketing Intermediaries on the

Effectiveness of Strategic Marketing activities of the Sampled Companies

Sub-Sector No. of

Respondents

(Marketing

Intermediar

ies)

Agree

(Effec

tive)

Percent Disagree

(Ineffecti

ve)

Percent

Building Materials (BM) 08 07 7.45 01 1.06

Construction (CO) 10 09 9.57 01 1.06

Emerging Markets (EM) 13 11 11.70 02 2.13

Food & Beverages (FB) 10 09 9.57 01 1.06

Textiles (TE) 08 07 7.45 01 1.06

Agriculture (AG) 08 07 7.45 01 1.06

Domestic Products (DP) 08 07 7.45 01 1.06

Automobile (AU) 12 11 11.70 01 1.06

Petroleum (PE) 11 10 10.64 01 1.06

Healthcare (HC) 06 05 5.32 01 1.06

Total 94 83 88.3 11 11.67


157

The research data, collected from the 94 participants, shows that 83 or 88.3% of the

respondents agreed that strategic marketing activities of the surveyed manufacturing

companies are effective as the products reach the right customers, at the right time, at the

right price even though there was series of complaints on hike in price on some

manufacturers products, particularly in the petroleum and building materials sub-sector.

The results also reveal that the marketing intermediaries are satisfied with the distribution

system but there are few complaints of hoardings and diversions in the petroleum and

agriculture sub-sectors. Most of the promotional mix elements such as advertising,

personal selling, sales promotion and publicity adopted by the companies are effective

except the healthcare sub-sector where there are no responses, as promotion of medical

services is un-ethical in the country. Only 11 respondents or 11.67 percent disagreed that

the implementation strategies of the surveyed manufacturing companies are ineffective.

The implication of the above interview result indicates that the strategic marketing

activities of manufacturing companies listed in the Nigerian stock exchange are effective;

this supports both the questionnaire findings and the group discussion outcomes.

4.9 Pearson Correlation Coefficient Analysis

A correlation coefficient is a very useful way to summarize the relationship between two

variables with a single number that falls between -1 and +1 (Welkowitz et al, (2006). In

Morgan et al (2004) it is given thus: -1.0 (a perfect negative correlation), 0.0 (no

correlation) and +1.0 (a perfect positive correlation). The Pearson correlation analysis

obtained for the three-interval scaled variables is summarized in Table 17. The sample

size (N) is 96 and the significant level is 0.01 (p = 0.01).

158

Table 17: Pearson Correlation Coefficient

CP IMPS FI AME EU ACI

CP 1

IMPS 0.786** 1

FI -0.581** -0.458* 1

AME 0.514** 0.466** -0.313*** 1

EU 0.446** 0.193 -0.223* 0.050 1

ACI 0.790** 0.553** 0.074 0.588** -0.022 1

Significant at 0.01***, 0.05** and 0.1*

Source: Generated using SPSS output Version 16.0

159

We can see from the Pearson Correlation in Table 17, that there is a strong positive

relationship between Company Performance (CP) and Implementation of marketing

policies and strategies (IMPS). We can also see from the table that there is strong positive

relationship between Company Performance (CP) and Implementation of marketing

policies and strategies (IMPS) and Absence or Collapse of Infrastructure (ACI). It is also

evident that there exists a relationship between Company Performance (CP) ranging from

0.514 for Attitudes of Marketing Executives (AME) to 0.446 for Environmental

Uncertainties (EU) at 5% level of significance. Also, there is moderate relationship

between the Implementation of marketing policies and strategies (IMPS), Absence or

Collapse of Infrastructure (ACI) and Fund Inadequacy (FI) with approximately 0.6 at 5%

level of significance.

Table 17 also shows that the relationship between Fund Inadequacy (FI), Absence or

Collapse of Infrastructure (ACI), Environmental Uncertainties (EU) and Attitudes of

Marketing Executives (AME) is weak. Similarly Fund Inadequacy (FI) exhibited the

known economic expected (a priori) negative sign to performance, this imply that the

current fund inadequacy was agreed to have aptly been responsible for any noticeable

decline in company performance in the industry. Lastly, the result further shows that the

Attitudes of Marketing Executives (AME) is significantly related to Absence or Collapse

of Infrastructure (ACI) and Fund Inadequacy (FI) at 5% level. At this juncture, there is a

need to further identify the actual or relative impact of these relationships to company

performance using regression analysis.

160

4.10 Multiple Regression Analysis

A Multiple ordinary least square (OLS) regression analysis was deployed on the data

collated for the purposes of the above. The variables used in the analysis include the five

(5) operational predictors of firms’ strategic marketing activities namely: Implementation

of Marketing Policies & Strategies (IMPS), Fund In-adequacy (FI), Environmental

Uncertainties (EU), Attitude of Marketing Executives (AME), and Absence or Collapse

of Infrastructure (ACI). The study would further examine whether there is any significant

relationship between Company Performance (proxy by profitability ratio), value of shares

Kinney (2000) and Mcvay (2005) and the predictor variables viz; Implementation of

Marketing Policies & Strategies (IMPS), Fund In-adequacy (FI), Attitude of Marketing

Executives (AME), Environmental Uncertainties (EU), and Absence or Collapse of

Infrastructure (ACI) thus:

CP = α0 + α1 IMPS + α2 FI + α3 AME + α4 EU + α5 ACI + ᶓi ………… (4.3)

However, before the regression analysis is carried out on the model above, a descriptive

frequency distribution statistic on the plausibility or otherwise of any significant

relationship between firms’ strategic marketing activities (the predictors) and the

company performance becomes absolutely necessary as shown in Figure 6. This test

becomes necessary in-order to commission further analysis or otherwise.

161

Source: Regression result using SPSS version 16.0 output

Figure 6: Relationship between strategic marketing and company performance.

162

Expectedly, the result in Figure 6 shows that little above 70 percent strongly agreed as

against 27 percent that there exist strong and significant relationship between strategic

marketing activities and company performance amongst manufacturing companies in

Nigeria. The above is in line with Noble, Sinha and Kumar (2002) and Balogun and

Johnson (2004), they found that there exists sufficient evidence of significant relationship

between strategic marketing and company performance. More so, many marketing

literatures have provided evidence of studies that used both quantitative methods (Hunt &

Morgan, 2001; Hooley & Greenley 2005) and qualitative methods (Porter 1980 & Mayle,

et al 2002) to measure the CP and SM research variables. Since these techniques have

empirically and theoretically yielded the desired results, the study utilizes both.

From Table 18, the coefficient of determination and it adjusted form of the regression

equation shows 41 and 35 percent respectively. Given the results of the F-test (19.94) and

its probability value (P-value=0.002), it means that the regression equation is of ‘good fit’

in other words, it is statistically significant at 5% level of significance. Put differently, the

predictors (strategic marketing variables) explained up to 40% of variation occurring on

the variability of the dependent variable (company performance). It is pertinent though to

state here that the seemingly low value of coefficient of the determination is theoretically

in order due to the nature of the data used (survey data) alongside its degree of freedom

Baltagi (2008). It is however only secondary data that are often expected to have its

forecast value of R2 high Hsiao (1986).

163

Table 18: Regression Analysis Result (Result Summaryb)

Model R

R

Square

Adjusted

R Square

Std. Error

of the

Estimate

Change Statistics

Durbin-

Watson

R

Square

Change

F

Change Df1 df2

Sig. F

Change

.316a

.410 .350 .0595446 .350 19.941 5 90 .002 .844


164

Table 19: Regression Analysis Result (relative impact of the parameter)

Independent Variable Beta

Coefficient

Standard

Error

ƿ – value Decision

Constant

IMPS 0.271 0.180 0.005

Sig.

FI -0.160 0.051 0.005

Sig.

AME -0.179 0.023

0.003 Sig.

EU 0.120 0.078 0.546.

Not Sig.

ACI -0.154 0.026 0.001 Sig.

R2 =0.410, R2 adjusted =0.350 F= 19.941, Fprob.= 0.05

a. Dependent Variable: CP(proxy by Net profit)

b. Source: Regression result using SPSS version 16.0 output

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CP = 0.271IMPS-0.16FI-0.18AME+0.12EU-0.15ACI+ μi……………Eqn..4.1 SE

(0.18) (0.051) (0.023) (0.078) (0.026)

From the result above, P-values of IMPS; FI; AME and ACI shows that they are all

statistically significant at 5% level of significance. It therefore connotes that for a unit

change (improvement) in IMPS would bring about 0.27 percent average change

(increase) on company performance; however holding other factors constant. On the

contrary, a unit change in FI, AME, and/or ACI would lead to 0.16; 0.18; 0.15 percent

average decline of the company performance respectively. Lastly, the result found that

EU is not significantly affecting company performance at the moment. Although, it (EU)

has the potential to affecting company performance if not properly managed at this level.

4.11 Test of Hypotheses

All the hypotheses tested were stated in null and alternative forms. The null hypotheses

indicate no significant relationship between the dependent variable (company

performance) and the independent variable (strategic marketing). The alternative

hypotheses are composites of the null hypotheses as they specify different relationships

between the variables under the study and are therefore, composite hypotheses (Hn: ƿ ≠ 0)

where n= 1, 2….5. In the testing and analysis of the hypotheses, the statistical test

adopted is correlation and regression analysis as can be seen in Table 17 and Table 19.

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. Table 20: ANOVAb Model Statistics

Model

Sum of

Squares Df

Mean

Square F Sig.

Regression

35.36 5 7.07 19.94 .002a

Residual 31.910 90 .355

Total 67.27 95

a. Predictors: (Constant), FI, ACI, IMPS, AME, EU

b. Dependent Variable: CP (proxy by Net profit)


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The ANOVA result (Table 20) shows that the linear combinations of the six factors were

significantly related to the company performance at 5% level of significance. This above

means that Implementation of Marketing Policies & Strategies (IMPS), fund In-adequacy

(FI), Environmental Uncertainties (EU), attitude of marketing executives (AME), and

absence or collapse of basic infrastructure (ACI) altogether are capable of explaining

change in company performance of firms in the manufacturing sector in Nigeria.

Based on the linear combinations of the six factors, Implementation of Marketing

Policies & Strategies (IMPS), Fund Inadequacy (FI), absence or collapse of infrastructure

(ACI) and Attitudes of Marketing Executives (AME) exhibit the most significant impact

on the performance of manufacturing companies in Nigeria while Environmental

Uncertainties (EU) exhibit the least impact. The normality test on the data spread as

shown using the Markov-curve in Figure 7 indicates that the data spread was normally

necessarily distributed devoid of normality bias.

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Source: Regression result using SPSS version 16.0 outputs

Figure 7: Standard Residual Normality Test

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4.11.1 Interpretation of the Test of Hypothesis:

Drawing from Table 19; hypotheses 1-5 would be scientifically interpreted via values of

the predictors in line with the objectives of the study; we therefore, present the test of

hypotheses as follows:


manufacturing companies

.

The Beta co-efficient of the implementation of strategic marketing (0.27) in equation 4.1

shows positive relationship between the implementation of strategic marketing and

company performance and was statistically significant at 5% with p- value of (0.005). A

unit change in Implementation of Marketing Policies & Strategies (IMPS) would bring

about 0.27 percent average change (increase) on company performance, holding other

factors constant. We therefore, reject the null hypothesis and accept the alternative

hypothesis that says there is a significant relationship between the implementation of

strategic marketing and company performance. Our position is therefore in line with

Sinha and Kumar (2002) and Balogun and Johnson (2004) found that there exists

sufficient evidence of significant relationship between strategic marketing and company

performance, also Kotler (1991) who identifies that the implementation of sound

marketing policies and strategies, resource adequacy and environmental scanning and

analysis are keys to sustainable competitive advantage and improved company

performance.

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.

The Beta co-efficient of fund inadequacy is (-0.16) in the equation with the p- value of

(0.005) is less than 5% level of significance; we therefore reject the null hypothesis that

fund has no significant impact on strategic marketing activities of manufacturing

companies in Nigeria. This is also in conformity with Tuominen, 2003; Hooley &

Greenley, 2005 who argued that adequacy of funds has also been shown to have

significant impact on strategic marketing activities of manufacturing companies as it has

relationship with competitive advantage and subsequently company performance



Since the Beta co-efficient of the attitude of marketing executives (AME) as shown in the

equation -0.18 with a p- value of (0.03) which is less than 5%. We therefore, reject the

null-hypothesis and conclude that the attitude of marketing executives has a significant

impact on the performance of manufacturing companies. The above result supports Hunt

and Morgan (1995) who argued that “the attitude of marketing executives relates to

ethical conduct in marketing practice which may have a significant impact on the

performance of so many firms either positively or negatively as ethical behaviour could

translate into a position of competitive advantage while unethical conduct could result to

decline in patronage and subsequently poor performance.

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In the same manner the Beta co-efficient of the environmental uncertainties (EU) in the

equation is 0.12 with a p- value of (0.546) which is more than 5% level of significance.

We therefore, accept the null hypothesis and conclude that there is yet any significant

relationship between environmental factors and strategic marketing activities of

manufacturing companies in Nigeria. However, the expected sign manifested in other

words, the factor if not checked would in no distance time affect performance of

companies in the sector. The result was not in agreement with Vassinen (2006) who

found significant relationships between environmental factors and overall firm

performance.



The Beta co-efficient of the absence or collapse of infrastructure (ACI) is -0.15 with p-

value of (0.01) which is less than 5% level of significance. We therefore, reject the null

hypothesis that infrastructure does not have a significant impact on strategic marketing

activities of manufacturing companies in Nigeria. It is largely in line with Onu (2000)

who considers the negative attitude of some Nigerian marketers and poor infrastructural

facilities as the major factors in Nigeria. He argues that attitude of marketing executives

and the state of infrastructure can influence company performance. He demonstrates how

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the availability of basic infrastructure such as good roads, stable power supply and

portable drinking water can affect the implementation of marketing strategies.

Similarly, Akpan (2003) states that the inadequate infrastructure or lack of it tend to have

serious negative consequences on firm’s performance.

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Table 21: Summary of test of Hypotheses

S/N Hypothesis Decision on

Ho

ƿ – value

1. Ho1: Strategic marketing does not have a significant

relationship on the performance of manufacturing

companies.

H11: Strategic marketing has a significant

relationship on the performance of manufacturing

companies.

Reject 0.005

2. Ho2: Fund inadequacy has no significant impact on

strategic marketing activities of manufacturing

companies in Nigeria.

H12: Fund inadequacy has significant impact on



Reject 0.005

3. Ho3: Attitude of marketing executives does not have

a significant impact on the performance of Nigeria


H13: Attitude of marketing executives has a

significant impact on the performance of Nigeria


Reject 0.003

4. Ho4: There is no significant relationship between

environmental factors and strategic marketing

activities of Nigeria manufacturing companies.

H14: There is significant relationship between

environmental factors and strategic marketing

activities of Nigeria manufacturing companies.

Accept 0.546

5. Ho5: Infrastructure does not have a significant

impact on strategic marketing activities of


H15: Infrastructure has a significant impact on



Reject 0.001

Source: Generated using SPSS output

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Table 21 shows the summary of test of hypotheses arising from the decisions based on

the formulated hypotheses for the study. As depicted in the table, so many decisions were

made as to whether we accept or reject the formulated hypotheses. From the conducted

first test of hypothesis result, there exists a significant relationship between the

Implementation of strategic marketing policies and company performance, since it was

statistically significant at 5% with p- value of (0.005) implying that a unit change in

Implementation of Marketing Policies & Strategies (IMPS) would bring about 0.27

percent average change (increase) on company performance, holding other factors

constant. We therefore, reject the null hypothesis and accept the alternative hypothesis

that says there is a significant relationship between the implementation of strategic

marketing and company performance.

The result from the second hypothesis test equally, shows that fund has significant impact

on the implementation of strategic marketing activities of manufacturing companies in

Nigeria. From the analysis, fund inadequacy is (-0.16) in the equation with the p- value of

(0.005)which is less than 5% level of significance; we therefore reject the null hypothesis

that fund has no significant impact on strategic marketing activities of manufacturing


Others with significant relationship as shown in Table 21 include hypotheses three and

five, respectively which equally rejects the Null hypotheses and accepts the Alternative

hypotheses. In view of the weak relationship of the fourth hypothesis, the Null hypothesis

which stated that there is no significant relationship between environmental uncertainties

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and the implementation of strategic marketing policies was, however, accepted and thus,

the Alternative hypothesis rejected. The null hypothesis was accepted because the Beta

co-efficient of the environmental uncertainties (EU) in the equation is 0.12 with a p-

value of (0.546) which is more than 5% level of significance. We therefore, conclude that

there is yet any significant relationship between environmental factors and strategic

marketing activities of manufacturing companies in Nigeria. However, the expected sign

manifested in other words, indicates that the factor if not checked would in no distance

time affect the performance of manufacturing companies in the sector.

4.12 Chi-square Analysis

Another statistical method adopted in analyzing our data to complement regression

technique is chi-square approach (appendix 3B); chi-square is a non-parametric test of

statistical significance for bivariate tabular analysis. Any appropriately performed test of

statistical significance will give you the degree of confidence you have in accepting or

rejecting a hypothesis. The summary of the chi-square analysis is presented in Table 22.

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Table 22: Summary of Chi-square Analysis

S/N Variable χ2 Df ƿ- value Decision

1. Do you agree that there is significant

relationship between the implementation of

strategic marketing policies and company

performance?

12.042 1 0.001 Agreed

2. Do you agree that Strategic Marketing

activities are more effective and result

oriented at the Maturity Stage of the

product life-cycle (PLC) as compared to

other Stages?

92.646 4 0.000 Agreed

3. How effective is the Advertising media for

the promotion of manufacturers’ products?

42.438 2 0.000 Effective

4. To what extent does adequacy of funds

impact on the implementation of marketing

policies and strategies in your organization?

34.00 3 0.000 Agreed

5. How relevant is the implementation of

strategic marketing policies to the

manufacturing sector and marketing

activities as a whole?

20.167 1 0.000 Relevant

Source: Generated using SPSS output (See appendix 2B)

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Table 22 is the summary of chi-square analysis for the study variables. There are five

questions in line with the objectives of the study that are considered for this analysis and

decisions based on respondent’s responses were conducted using chi-square. From the

summarized table, a significant percentage of respondents agreed that there is significant

relationship between the implementation of strategic marketing and company

performance; this is strongly supported with a ƿ- value of 0.001.

Furthermore, the computed chi-square shows that a significant number of respondents

agreed that strategic marketing activities are more effective and result-oriented at the

maturity stage of the product life-cycle (PLC) as compared to other stages of the product

life-cycle (PLC), this is supported with a strong ƿ- value of 0.000. The result found that

companies at the maturity stage, faces formidable challenges as a result of the aggressive

competition in the market place. Product modification and sales promotional activities

has proved to be the most effective strategies at this stage which is in line with the

research position of Kotler (1991).

On the effectiveness of the advertising media, the chi-square result show that the

Advertising media for the promotion of manufacturers’ products is very effective as it is

supported with a ƿ- value of 0.000. The study found that the effectiveness of the

advertising media is being determined by the nature of the product produced. The result

shows that the broadcast media (Radio & Television) has proved to be the most effective

medium for the advertising of consumer goods in view of the broadcast effect. This is

true of such findings in food & beverages and textiles sub-sector.

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Findings from the companies that produce industrial goods in the automobile,

construction and emerging markets sub-sector identified the print media (Newspapers and

Magazines) as the most effective channel for the advertising of industrial goods because

of the complex nature of the product produced by the companies. The implication of

these findings to the study is that the broadcast media is more appropriate for the

advertising of consumer goods while the print media is more appropriate for the

advertising of industrial products. This was equally in line with the research findings of

Kotler and Kelly (2006).

Another area of decision is the agreement with the statement that adequacy of funds can

impact on the implementation of marketing policies and strategies in manufacturing

companies; this is also supported with a strong ƿ- value of 0.000, while responses on the

relevance of the implementation of strategic marketing to the manufacturing sector and

marketing activities reveals that it is very relevant; this is supported with a ƿ- value of

0.000. It’s in view of the above that some major findings were made.

4.13 Major Findings

The main objective of this study is to evaluate the factors influencing strategic marketing

on the performance of manufacturing companies in Nigeria. As part of the move toward

the realization of this objective, some analysis was conducted based on the data collected

in line with the hypotheses of the study. Out of the one hundred and six (106) sample

population, ninety six (96) manufacturing companies that were listed on the Nigeria stock

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exchange as at December 2011 responded to the questionnaires administered leading to

some major findings based on the objectives and hypothesis of the study.

Hypothesis One: Strategic marketing does not have a significant relationship on the

performance of manufacturing companies.

Findings based on the above hypothesis revealed that strategic marketing has significant

relationship on the performance of manufacturing companies in Nigeria and is influenced

by so many factors that are both internal and external to the organization; among the

major internal factors are poor implementation of marketing mix decisions, inadequate

funding, attitude of marketing executives and other important factors such as market

orientation, Innovation orientation, marketing assets and capabilities, competitive

advantage, market performance and ethical issues.

The findings also revealed that external environmental factors such as infrastructure,

socio-economic, legal/political, demographic and technological factors can impact

significantly on the performance of manufacturing companies in Nigeria. The implication

for the study here is that for any manufacturing company to succeed in its strategies, it

must have clear understanding of the complexities of both the internal and external

environments.

Hypothesis Two: Fund inadequacy has no significant impact on strategic marketing

activities of manufacturing companies in Nigeria.

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The findings on whether fund inadequacy has no significant impact on strategic

marketing activities of manufacturing companies in Nigeria, the study found that fund

availability or lack of it is a major determinant to any strategy implementation. Fund

adequacy helps firms compete favourably with other competitors and motivate the

employees for maximum productivity while fund inadequacy results to failure in

competition and dampens the morale of employees which subsequently results in low

level of productivity and by implication, low performance. The implication of this study

is that companies with adequate funds are likely going to succeed in the implementation

of marketing strategies than companies with inadequate funds.

Hypothesis Three: Attitude of marketing executives does not have a significant impact on

the performance of Nigeria manufacturing companies.

With respect to the attitude of marketing executives which have significant impact on the

performance of manufacturing companies in Nigeria, the study found that a larger

percentage of the respondents were of the view that attitudinal problems such as poor

motivational incentives, the get- rich-quick syndrome and employees’ psychological

factor and other un-ethical issues were the major problems which impact negatively on

company performance while companies with strict compliance to ethical standard or

positive managerial attitudes are likely to perform better than companies involved in

some un-ethical marketing practices. The implication for this study is that manufacturing

companies should always conduct strategic marketing decisions guided by the ethical

provisions of marketing practice in Nigeria.

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Hypothesis Four: There is no significant relationship between environmental factors and

strategic marketing activities of Nigeria manufacturing companies.

On whether there is no significant relationship between environmental factors and

strategic marketing activities of manufacturing companies in Nigeria, the study found that

majority of the respondents agreed that there is a significant relationship between

environmental factors and strategic marketing. The study is of the view that external

environmental factors such as socio-cultural/economic factors, legal/political,

demographic and technological factors are the most significant factors responsible for

environmental uncertainties which can impact on marketing activities either positively or

negatively. The implication for this study is that manufacturing companies with the

ability to track changes that normally occur in the environment and map out the right

strategies to exploit opportunities in the changing environment through constant

environmental scanning and analysis are more likely to perform than those without

proper environmental scanning and analysis.

Hypothesis Five: Infrastructure does not have a significant impact on strategic

marketing activities of manufacturing companies in Nigeria

On whether infrastructure does not have a significant impact on strategic marketing

activities of manufacturing companies in Nigeria, majority of the respondents attributed

both governments’ insensitivity to its citizens, low per-capita income, poor leadership

and negative attitude of Nigerians referred to as the Nigerian factor as the major factors

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responsible for the absence or collapse of infrastructure which hampers the activities of

manufacturers in Nigeria resulting to factory closures. The implication for this study is

that the absence or total collapse of country’s’ infrastructure affect the smooth operations

of most manufacturing companies leading to some companies winding up and others

moving to some African countries were the environment was considered to be more

favourable for their marketing activities to thrive.

Furthermore, on the relevance of strategic marketing to the performance of

manufacturing companies, majority of those interviewed were of the view that strategic

marketing is very relevant to the performance of manufacturing companies in Nigeria as

according to them, strategic marketing help companies to achieve some set objectives,

and these objectives can be measured in terms of profit, market share, marketing cost,

gross earnings, capital employed, asset quality, quality of marketing management,

liquidity, turnover of marketing staff, and management of departmental crisis. Since all

the respondents interviewed agreed on the appropriateness of the study believing that it

will provide the much-needed guide for marketing practitioners in Nigeria, the

implication here is that manufacturing companies should pursue the implementation of

strategic marketing with vigour so as to achieve some level of company performance that

will lead to effectiveness and subsequently, sustainable competitive advantage.

From the focus group discussions (FGD) held with different targeted groups of customers

in the six geo-political zones of the country to clarify service quality dimension in the

context of manufacturer’s claims, we found out that customers are satisfied with the

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products quality, its pricing dimension, effectiveness of the distribution system and

promotional strategies of the firms. This Implies that the marketing strategies of

manufacturing companies as it relates to the marketing mix elements are very effective

but a lesser percentage of customer groups in the building materials and petroleum sub-

sectors complain of incessant price hikes, particularly on prices of cement, fuel and

kerosene. Other complaints include sub-standard health facilities in the healthcare sub-

sector and ineffective distribution system in the petroleum and agric sub-sectors which

was marred by diversions and hoardings of the products.

From the structured interview targeted at the chain of marketing intermediaries of the

sampled manufacturing companies in the six geo-political zones of the country, we found

out that most of the marketing intermediaries interviewed agreed that the marketing

strategies of the surveyed companies are effective. It is in the light of the above findings

some discussions were made as below.

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4.14 Discussions of Findings

The results are discussed to address the research questions for this study.

Research Question One: How relevant is strategic marketing to the performance of

Nigeria manufacturing companies?

From the analysis, the study found out that strategic marketing is relevant to the

performance of manufacturing companies in Nigeria as it will provide the much needed

guide for manufacturing companies to function more effectively. The study found that

strategies frequently fail not because of inadequate strategy formulation, but because of

insufficient implementation.

Research Question Two: To what extent do funds affect strategic marketing activities of


The study found that funds inadequacy can have a serious negative impact on strategic

marketing activities of manufacturing companies in Nigeria. From the findings, a greater

percentage of the respondents (55%) agree that fund inadequacy can impact negatively on

the performance of manufacturing companies while 20 percent agree that inadequacy of

funds stifles expansion and growth of their businesses. From the study it further found

that inadequacy of funds can affect the performance of manufacturing companies in

Nigeria through crippling of the entire operations of the companies, resulting in

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stagnation or decline of the businesses, failure in competition and dampening employees

morale which subsequently results in low-level of productivity and by implication, low

performance. It shows how fund adequacy can help significantly in the implementation of

different types of marketing strategies for effective performance. This means that fund

adequacy makes the strongest unique contribution to explaining the dependent variable

(company performance), as the overall success of any marketing strategy depends largely

on the amount of money available to the organization for use in the implementation of

those strategies.

Adequate funding is a major requirement to successful implementation of any strategy;

this is the more reason why the study found out that fund inadequacy makes the single

most unique contribution to decline in growth via reduction in the dependent variable

(company performance). It was established in the study that inadequate funding of

strategic marketing activities is certainly one of the major reasons for the poor

performance of most manufacturing companies in Nigeria.

Research Question Three: What are those attitudes of marketing executives which have

serious impact on the general performance of Nigeria manufacturing companies?

The study found that the attitudes of marketing executives that have serious impact on the

general performance of manufacturing companies in Nigeria are both positive and

negative in nature. The study also, found that positive attitudes and quality of the people

186

involved in the execution process helped the effectiveness of any strategy

implementation. Based on the findings, quality refers to skills, attitudes, capabilities,

experiences and other characteristics of people such as good moral as required by a

specific task or position. The findings indicate that the success of strategy

implementation depends crucially on the people or human side of project management,

and less on organization and systems related factors. On the negative attitude, the study

found that a larger percentage of the respondents were of the view that attitudinal

problems such as poor motivational incentives, the get-rich-quick syndrome and

employees’ psychological factor as among the major factors which have serious negative

consequences on company performance.

Research Question Four: To what extent does infrastructure affect strategic marketing

activities of manufacturing companies in Nigeria?

The extent to how infrastructure affects strategic marketing activities of manufacturing

companies in Nigeria can be linked to several factors. Based on the study, majority of the

respondents attributed absence or collapse of infrastructure to government’s insensitivity

to the plight of its citizens, low per-capita income, poor leadership and negative attitude

of Nigerians referred to as the Nigerian factor, as the major factors which contributed

significantly to the low-level performance of most manufacturing companies in Nigeria.

The study found out that poor performance of infrastructural facilities, characterized by

frequent disruption in electric power and water supplies and inefficient

telecommunication and transportation systems are major constraints to performance and

187

productivity of a company. Owing to these problems, the study reveals that most

manufacturing companies have to invest huge capital outlay to provide alternative

infrastructural facilities to run their businesses, while enterprises are forced to carry high

cost structure which reduces efficiency and results in loss of competitiveness for their

products.

Research Question Five: How does the environment affect strategic marketing activities

of Nigeria manufacturing companies?

The study found that changes in the Nigerian environment affect strategic marketing

activities of manufacturing companies. The changes according to the survey findings

were brought about by so many environmental factors the major ones being socio-

cultural/economic, legal/political, demographic, competitive and technological factors.

Most of the surveyed manufacturing companies used socio-economic class as their

segmentation variable. The result of the analysis found that the uncertainties associated

with the marketing environment can have a serious impact on the implementation of

marketing strategies which requires that marketers must continue to monitor the

environment with a view to track changes that may occur and alter their marketing

programmes accordingly. The study emphasized on the need for marketers to understand

how technological development might affect their marketing activities, technology will

continue to evolve while organizations that continue to ignore this will face extinction.

Research Question Six: What is the extent of the relationship between strategic

marketing and company performance?

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The results of the study show that there is a strong relationship between strategic

marketing and company performance. From the analysis, we found out that there was a

strong positive relationship between the dependent variable (company performance) and

implementation of marketing policies and strategies. It is also evident from the study that

there exists a significant negative relationship between company performance, attitude of

marketing executives, absence or collapse of infrastructure, and fund inadequacy.

However, the relationship between fund inadequacy and absence or collapse of

infrastructure, and fund inadequacy and environmental uncertainties were found to be

weak. The result of the analysis further found that environmental uncertainties have a

moderate relationship with resource inadequacy. The implication of the above findings

shows that the implementation of strategic marketing policies in Nigeria has been

influenced by so many endogenous and exogenous factors to the companies. Among the

major factors is poor implementation of marketing mix decisions, inadequate funding,

and attitude of marketing executives, absence or collapse of infrastructure and

environmental uncertainties that can impact either positively or negatively on the

marketing activities of manufacturing companies in Nigeria.

In the study, we have identified other important environmental factors that influence

strategic marketing on the performance of manufacturing companies which help to

describe the extent of the relationship. They are: market orientation, innovation

orientation, marketing assets and capabilities, competitive advantage, market

performance and ethical issues.

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CHAPTER FIVE

SUMMARY, CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS

5.1 Summary of Findings

The objective of this study is to evaluate the factors influencing strategic marketing on

the performance of manufacturing companies in Nigeria to help in identifying the

relationship between strategic marketing and company performance. The robust analysis

carried out in the course of this study revealed a lot of findings. Some of the findings are

literature-based; some are methodological while some are analytical -based. The

summary of results from our analysis revealed that:

1. There is a strong relationship between strategic marketing and company

performance.

2. Strategic marketing is influenced by many factors that are both internal and

external to the organization.

3. Inadequate funding of strategic marketing activities is one of the major reasons

for the poor performance of most manufacturing companies in Nigeria.

4. Marketing executives with positive managerial attitudes and compliance with

ethical standard are likely to perform better than those involved in some un-

ethical marketing practices.

190

5. There is a significant relationship between environmental factors and strategic


6. Poor leadership and negative attitude of Nigerians has been the major factors

responsible for the absence or collapse of infrastructure which hampers

manufacturing activities in the country.

7. Strategic marketing activities are more effective and result-oriented at the

maturity stage of the Product Life-Cycle (PLC) as compared to other stages.

8. Broadcast media (Radio & Television) is the most effective channel for the

advertising of consumer goods, while the print media (Newspapers and

Magazines) has proved to be the most effective channel for the advertising of

industrial goods produced by the manufacturing companies.

9. There is varying degree of opinion on the most effective channel of distribution of

goods in the sub-sectors but most of the manufacturers identified manufacturer-

wholesaler-retailer- agent- consumer as the most effective channel.

10. Customers’ reactions from the FGD’s, expressed satisfaction with the entire

marketing policies and strategies of the surveyed companies except on some

lapses identified with the distribution system and incessant price hikes by the


191

11. Marketing intermediaries from the structured interview result agreed that the

marketing strategies of the surveyed companies are effective.

5.2 Conclusion

In this study, we were made to understand that the quest for company performance or

building competitive advantage caused companies to be strategic in nature, particularly on

decisions relating to the creation of value and total customer satisfaction. Generally, the

study found that strategic marketing is very relevant to the performance of manufacturing

companies in Nigeria as it helps companies to achieve their set objectives in an effective

and efficient manner and thus, provided the much-needed guide for manufacturing

companies in the country to perform more effectively.

The study concludes that there is sufficient evidence to show that internal and external

environmental factors such as implementation of marketing mix decisions, market

orientation, Innovation orientation, marketing assets and capabilities, competitive

advantage, market performance and ethical issues significantly affect strategic marketing

activities of manufacturing companies in Nigeria. The core aspect of the strategy

implementation, such as implementation of marketing policies and strategies, fund

inadequacy, availability of infrastructure and attitudes of marketing executives exhibit the

most statistically significant effects while environmental uncertainties exhibit the least

impact.

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Most of the findings of the research are consistent with previous normative and empirical

works as it has provided empirical evidence pertaining to the perception of marketing

strategies of manufacturing companies, and the influence of environmental factors on such

strategies. Therefore, the study concludes that strategic marketing significantly impact on

company performance.

5.3 Recommendations

Based on the findings and conclusions of the study, the following recommendations are

made in a bid to enhance strategic marketing activities of manufacturing companies in the

country:

1. Manufacturing companies should have clear understanding of the complexities of

both the internal and external environments through constant monitoring and

evaluation of the environment. Changes in the marketing environment can bring

about opportunities and threats to an organization’s strategic development, and

the organization cannot risk remaining static. It must monitor its environment

continually in order to: build the business, develop strategic capabilities that

move the organization forward, improve the ways in which it creates

products/services and develop new and existing markets with a view to offering

its customers better services.

2. Manufacturing companies should make available adequate funds to help in the

execution of sound marketing strategies as the successful implementation of any

193

strategy is determined by not only the quality of personnel involved but the

availability of funds.

3. Manufacturers should know that the success of any strategy implementation lies in

the quality of the executors and their ethical behaviour. Implementers should be

ethical in their conduct and must possess the requisite skills, attitudes, capabilities

and experiences to implement any strategy. They should be willing to gather

insight and improve on decision making to the extent that any particular decision

taken as it relates to strategy implementation is always correct.

4. Collapse of infrastructure such as epileptic electricity and water supply as well as

poor telecommunication and transportation services which currently constrain

manufacturing activities should be given priority attention by the government.

There is urgent need to rehabilitate and expand them to aid industrial recovery and

growth. Good infrastructure raises productivity and lowers production costs.

5. Manufacturing companies should pay adequate attention to their strategic

marketing activities, particularly at the maturity stage by modifying their

products and conducting sales promotional activities. This will help to stimulate

demand and achieve deeper market penetration.

6. Consumer goods manufacturing companies have been enjoined to use the

broadcast media for the advertisement of their products in view of the broadcast

194

effect, while industrial goods manufacturing companies should focus more on

print media due to the complex nature of their products.

7. In a bid to remain competitive in the industry, manufacturing companies should

always use the right distribution channels which will afford companies the

opportunity of delivering the right goods and services to the right customers at

the right time and at the right place using the most effective distribution channel.

8. Manufacturers should recognize the relevance of the implementation of strategic

marketing on the performance of manufacturing companies. It is in this light that

manufacturing companies in Nigeria are enjoined to from time to time evaluate

the factors that influence strategic marketing which will help to increase or boost

their understanding of the implications of such factors on both the company

performance and customer’s satisfaction.

5.4 Suggestions for Further Studies

This research leads to some observations that might be of interest to future researchers, as

they represent the seeds from which future researches can be developed but the extent of

applications of our generalization comes into play here in condition that our findings may

not automatically apply to all facets of companies, industries or sectors. Scholars are

challenged to investigate other industries or sectors as a case point. In addition to the

above, the following might be of interest to future researchers:

195

(a) This same research can be carried out in other nations so that a broad comparison of

the concepts of implementation of strategic marketing policies as it affects company

performance can be made.

(b) Research into the effects of key characteristics of industries’ environmental indices

and marketing strategy could be carried out to further explain the differences in the

company’s adoption of strategic marketing.

(c) Finally, There have been few studies comparing similarities and differences of

strategy implementation among private corporations and state-owned corporations, or

among local firms and multinational companies. We thus do not know which specific

differences exist regarding strategy implementation in these various organizations. This

clearly is another interesting avenue for future research.

5.5 Contributions to Knowledge

This study provided three noteworthy contributions to knowledge. Firstly, the study

provides concrete information about the process for the successful implementation of

marketing strategies which is to be used as a rough guide by manufacturing companies in

Nigeria to achieve some level of company performance.

Secondly, the study highlights the major environmental factors unique to the Nigerian

environment which influence strategic marketing decisions among manufacturing

companies in the country. The study not only discusses factors that influence strategic

196

marketing but also synthesize findings into elaborate frameworks and models. The model

is based on existing performance models and new insights from emergent literature and

has been validated through focus group discussions and structured interviews.

Thirdly, from empirical and verified findings we have identified seven clear company

performance dimensions of which all the seven dimensions show highly significant

relationships with both strategic marketing and company performance.

Finally, we revealed that there is a significant relationship between strategic marketing

and company performance.

197

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214

Appendix 1A

(Questionnaire for Marketing Managers/Sales Executives)

DEPARTMENT OF MANAGEMENT TECHNOLOGY,

SCHOOL OF MANAGEMENT TECHNOLOGY,

ABUBAKAR TAFAWA BALEWA UNIVERSITY, BAUCHI

-----------------------------------------

----------------------------------------- Date: 20 September, 2011

-----------------------------------------

Dear Respondents,

SURVEY QUESTIONNAIRE ON EVALUATION OF FACTORS INFLUENCING

STRATEGIC MARKETING ON THE PERFORMANCE OF MANUFACTURING

COMPANIES IN NIGERIA

I am a PhD in Management student of the above institution conducting research on the

above topic.

The objective of the exercise is to satisfy part of the requirements for the award of degree

of PhD in Management by the Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, University (A.T.B.U) Bauchi.

In view of this, you are kindly requested to fill in this questionnaire by providing relevant

information to the questions asked hereunder or by ticking the appropriate box that is

applicable to your answer.

I wish to assure you that all information provided will be treated with absolute

confidentiality in line with the rules and regulations guiding academic research as

obtainable the world over.

Do not hesitate to contact me on the following GSM numbers: 08036340963 or e-mail

address; [email protected] on any further information regarding the survey

exercise.

Thanks.

Yours Faithfully,

Bello Ayuba

(PGS/2006/2007/504009)

mailto:[email protected]

215

Section A: Demographic Information of the Respondents

1. Sex: (a) Male ( ) (b) Female ( )

2. Age: (a) Below 25 years ( )

(b) 26-35 years ( )

(c) 36-45 years ( )

(d) 46- 55 years ( )

(e) 56 years and above ( )

3. Marital Status: (a) Single ( ) (b) Married ( )

4. Highest Educational Qualification:

(a) “O” Level or equivalent ( )

(b) Diploma or equivalent ( )

(c) Degree or equivalent ( )

(d) Postgraduate Studies ( )

(e) Others (Specify) -------------------------------------------------

5. Department/Unit:

a. Marketing ( )

b. Administration ( )

6. Designation:

a. Marketing Manager ( )

b. Sales Executive ( )

216

7. Years of Working Experience:

(a) Below 1 year ( )

(b) 1-5 years ( )

(c) 6-10 years ( )

(d) 11-15 years ( )

(e) 16 years and above ( )

Section B: Structured Questions on the factors influencing strategic marketing

on the performance of manufacturing companies in Nigeria.

8. What are the factors responsible for the poor implementation of strategic

marketing among manufacturing companies in Nigeria?

a. Poor Marketing Mix Decisions ( )

b. Poor Planning ( )

c. Inadequate Funding ( )

d. Attitude of Nigerian Managers ( )

e. Others (Please, Specify) -----------------------------------------------------

9. What Kind of Strategy does your company adopt in marketing its Products?

a. Cost Leadership Strategy ( )

b. Differentiation Strategy ( )

c. Focus Strategy ( )

d. Price Skimming & Penetration Strategy ( )

e. Others (Please, Specify) -----------------------------------------------------

10. Is the Strategy in 9 above effective in achieving the company’s marketing goals?

a. Very Effective ( )

b. Effective ( )

c. Very Ineffective ( )

217

d. Ineffective ( )

e. Uncertain ( )

11. Do you agree that there is significant relationship between strategic marketing and

company performance?

a. Strongly Agreed ( )

b. Agreed

c. Strongly Disagreed ( )

d. Disagree ( )

e. Uncertain ( )

12. From your own assessment, which Stage of the Product Life Cycle calls for more

Strategic Marketing?

a. Introduction Stage ( )

b. Growth Stage ( )

c. Maturity Stage ( )

d. Decline Stage ( )

e. Saturation Stage ( )

13. Do you agree that Strategic Marketing activities are more effective and result

oriented at the Maturity Stage of the product life-cycle (PLC) as compared to other

Stages?


b.Agreed ( )


d.Disagree ( )

e. Uncertain ( )

218

14. How often do you modify your product (s)?

a. Quarterly ( )

b. Half Yearly ( )

c. Annually ( )

d. Not at all ( )

e. Others (Please, Specify) -------------------------------------------

15. What are the factors responsible for the product modifications?

a. Change in Consumer Taste ( )

b. Change in Technology ( )

c. Competitors Activities ( )

d. Environmental Uncertainties ( )

e. All of the above ( )

16. What particular features of the product are your customers satisfied with?

a. Packaging Style ( )

b. Color ( )

c. Quality ( )

d. Quantity ( )


17. What differentiates your product from that of other competitors?

a. Differentiation strategy ( )

b. Strong Business Portfolio ( )

c. Effective Promotional Strategy ( )

d. Product Modifications ( )


18. What makes your product achieve superior performance and competitive

advantage over that of your competitors?

219

a. Good Positioning Strategy ( )

b. Innovation Orientation ( )

c. Market Orientation ( )

d. Marketing Assets & Capabilities ( )

e. Others (Specify) ----------------------------------------------

19. What are the performance indicators being used to assess company

performance in your organization?

a. Financial Measures ( )

b. Marketing Measures ( )

c. Operations Effectiveness and Efficiency Measures ( )

d. Expansion and Growth Measures ( )

e. All of the Above ( )

20. Which of the following factors has the most influence on the effectiveness of

strategic marketing planning process in your organization?

a. Good Leadership ( )

b. Direction Skills ( )

c. Communication and Coordination ( )

d. Company Structure ( )


21. Indicate the strategy implementation type which best fit your organization for

effective performance.

a. Change Model ( )

b. Collaborative Model ( )

c. Cultural Model ( )

d. Combination of a, b and c ( )

e. Others (Please, Specify) ------------------------------------------

220

22. Identify the psychological factors which have serious implications on your

strategic planning processes.

a. Differences in Beliefs Concerning Goals ( )

b. Perceptions ( )

c. Attitudes ( )

d. Traditions ( )


23. Through which of the following means do you deliver value and satisfaction to

your customers?

a. Operational Excellence ( )

b. Customer Intimacy ( )

c. Product Leadership ( )

d. Market Orientations ( )


24. Which among the following elements is your Company’s marketing assets?

a. Distribution Penetration ( )

b. Marketing Expertise ( )

c. Customer Loyalty ( )

d. Brand Reputation ( )


25. From the concepts below, identify the one which has influence most on your

organization’s strategic marketing activities

a. Competitive Environment ( )

b. Operational Marketing Performance and Growth ( )

c. Marketing Mix Decisions ( )

d. Resource Base View (RVB) of the firm ( )

e. Marketing Orientations ( )

221

26. Indicate the performance measurement criteria being employed by your

organization to measure growth and leadership position

a. Customer Satisfaction and Retention ( )

b. Sales Growth ( )

c. Market Share ( )

d. Profitability or Returns on Investment ( )


27. Did your Company witness any increase in sales volume and profitability over

the last five years? (a)Yes ( ) (b) No ( )

28. If yes in 27 above, would you agree that the growth potential can be attributed

to the general impact of strategic marketing?


b. Agreed ( )


d. Disagree ( )

e. Uncertain ( )

29. Does your company engage in any form of Promotional activities?

(a)Yes ( ) (b) No ( )

30. Which of these alternative Promotional Tools has proved to be the most

effective in the promotion of your goods?

a. Sales Promotion ( )

b. Advertising ( )

c. Personal Selling ( )

d. Publicity ( )


222

31. What is your Advertising media?

a. Television ( )

b. Radio ( )

c. Newspaper ( )

d. Magazine ( )


32. How effective is the Advertising media for the promotion of manufacturers’

products?

a. Strongly Effective ( )

b. Effective ( )

c. Strongly Ineffective ( )

d. Ineffective ( )

e. Uncertain ( )

33. Are your targeted groups of potential customers satisfied with entire marketing

mix policies of the company?

a. Very Unsatisfied ( )

b. Unsatisfied ( )

c. Satisfied ( )

d. Very Satisfied ( )

e. Indifferent ( )

34. What kind of Pricing Strategy does your company adopt in a bid to achieve

deeper market penetration?

a. Skimming Pricing Policy ( )

b. Penetration Pricing Policy ( )

c. Discriminatory Pricing ( )

d. Appropriate Pricing Strategy ( )


223

35. Does your company initiate price changes periodically?

(a)Yes ( ) (b) No ( )

36. If your answer to 35 above is yes, what period?

a. Monthly ( )

b. Quarterly ( )

c. Half Yearly ( )

d. Annually ( )

e. Not at all ( )

37. If your answer to Question No.35 is yes, do you think such changes will not

result to some resistance on the part of buyers?

(a)Yes ( ) (b) No ( )

38. What is the most effective channel of distribution of goods being used by your

company?

a. Manufacturer – Wholesaler – Retailer – Agent - Consumer ( )

b. Manufacturer – Retailer – Agent – Consumer ( )

c. Manufacturer – Wholesaler- Consumer ( )

d. Manufacturer – Consumer ( )

e. Others (Please, Specify) ---------------------------------------------------

39. List the modes of transportation being used by your company in its distribution

of goods:

a. Road ( )

b. Air ( )

c. Sea ( )

d. Rail ( )


224

40. To what extent are the effectiveness of the modes and channels in delivering

goods to the right customers at the right time and the right place?

a. Strongly Effective ( )

b. Effective ( )

c. Indifferent ( )

d. Ineffective ( )

e. Strongly In effective ( )

41. How does adequacy of funds affect strategic marketing activities of


a. It smoothens the operations of the company ( )

b. It ensures expansion and growth of business ( )

c. It helps Compete Favorably with Competitors ( )

d. It motivates Employees for Maximum productivity ( )

e. It boost the image of the organization ( )

42. How does inadequacy of funds affect strategic marketing activities of


a. It cripples the operation of the Company ( )

b. It result to stagnation of Business ( )

c. It result to failure in Competition ( )

d. It dampens employees’ morale ( )

e. It dent the image of the organization ( )

43. How does strategic marketing help your company in gaining competitive

advantage?

a. Through effective implementation of sound marketing policies ( )

b. Constant environmental scanning and analysis ( )

c. It help in new product development ( )

d. It result to profitability and total satisfaction of customers ( )


225

44. What are the major un-ethical marketing practices which have characterized the

marketing of your goods?

a. Negative attitude of both employees, customers & intermediaries ( )

b. Hoarding ( )

c. Price collusion ( )

d. Deceptive Advertising ( )


45. To what extent do the un-ethical practices impact on the general performance of

the company and customer’s satisfaction?

a. Low patronage & decline in profit ( )

b. General customer dissatisfaction ( )

c. Lack of attainment of organizational goals ( )

d. Customer defection ( )


46. What are the factors responsible for the negative attitude of some of the marketing

executives in your organization?

a. Poor motivational incentives ( )

b. Syndrome of get rich quick ( )

c. Employee psychological or Individual factor ( )

d. Structural problems ( )


47. To what extent do the negative attitudes impact on the performance of the

organization and customer’s satisfaction?

a. Retard organizational growth ( )

b. Decline in patronage ( )

c. Decline in profit ( )

d. Customer Defection ( )


226

48. What could you attribute as the major environmental factor(s) responsible for the

uncertainties associated with the Nigerian manufacturing environment?

a. Socio-cultural/economic factor ( )

b. Legal/political factors ( )

c. Demographic factor ( )

d. Technological factor ( )


49. How does your organization influence these factors in the implementation of

strategic marketing policies?

a. Constant analysis of the environment ( )

b. Identification of major opportunities ( )

c. Devising strategies in working under risk condition ( )

d. Evaluation and re-evaluation of marketing policies ( )


50. How relevant is the implementation of strategic marketing policies to the

manufacturing sector and marketing activities as a whole?

a. Very relevant ( )

b. Relevant ( )

c. Indifferent ( )

d. Irrelevant ( )

e. Very Irrelevant ( )

f.

51. In your own opinion, do most Nigerian manufacturers understand and effectively

apply the concepts of strategic marketing?

(a) Yes ( ) (b) No ( )

52. If yes in 51 above, estimate the percentage as indicated below:

a. Less than 40% ( )

b. 40-60% ( )

c. 60-100% ( )

227

53. What do you think are the major infrastructural inadequacies facing the Nigerian

manufacturing sector?

a. Poor Transportation System ( )

b. Lack of water Supply ( )

c. Unstable Power Supply ( )

d. Poor Communication System ( )


54. To what extent do the absence or collapse of basic infrastructure affects

manufacturing activities in the country?

a. High Production Cost ( )

b. Decline in Capacity Utilization ( )

c. Unprecedented Factory Closures/Job Losses ( )

d. Exodus of Companies to other Countries ( )


55. What could you attribute as the factors responsible for the absence or collapse of

the country’s basic infrastructure which has affected manufacturing activities?

a. Government’s insensitivity to the plight of its citizens ( )

b. Low Pa-Capita Income ( )

c. Poor Leadership ( )

d. Negative Attitudes of Nigerians ( )


56. Suggest ways on how strategic marketing can be implemented by manufacturers

to achieve sustainable competitive advantage in Nigeria------------------------------------

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

------------------------------------------------------ (You may write on a separate sheet).

228

Appendix 1B

Structured Interview Schedule Questions For Marketing Intermediaries:

1. From your perspective, how do you assess the effectiveness of strategic marketing

activities of manufacturing companies in Nigeria in their bid to provide you with the

needed satisfaction more effectively?

2. To what extent do you think adequacy or inadequacy of funds affect the effectiveness

of strategic marketing activities of manufacturing companies in Nigeria?

3. Identify the most effective medium for the promotion of goods produced by the


4. How effective is the Advertising media for the promotion of manufacturer’s goods?

5. How do you view the effectiveness of the manufacturers’ distribution system in a bid

to make their products available to customers at the right time and at the right place?

6. What is the most effective channel of distribution of goods?

7. Briefly explain the effectiveness of the manufacturer’s promotional strategies at each

stage of the product life-cycle.

8. Does the attitude of marketing executives’ impact effectively on the general

performance of the manufacturing companies and customers satisfaction as whole?

9. How effective are the manufacturers pricing strategies in achieving their pricing

objectives?

10. Identify the environmental factors which you think have influence most on the

implementation of marketing policies and strategies.

11. Do you support the assertion that the absence or total collapse of infrastructure is the

major bane of manufacturers’ which renders their strategies ineffective?

12. Briefly comment on strategic marketing activities of manufacturing companies in

Nigeria and suggest how the implementation could be more successful.

229

Appendix 1C

Focus Groups Discussions (FGD) Questions for Customers

In a bid to be clear as to whether the strategies being adopted by Nigerian manufacturing

companies in serving their customers are effective or ineffective, the following questions

were asked during the focus group discussions with various targeted customer groups in

the six geo-political zones of the country:

1. Briefly introduce yourself and explain your role(s) in the buying process

2. Are you getting product of the right quality which provides you with the needed

satisfaction more effectively?

3. What particular features of the manufacturers’ product are you satisfied or dissatisfied

with?

4. Can you rate the satisfaction level of the product quality?

5. What is the pricing strategy adopted for the marketing of the goods?

6. Are you satisfied with the pricing dimension and the incessant price increases?

7. How do you rate the effectiveness of the manufacturers’ distribution system in a bid to

make available their products right on your door steps?

8. What is the most effective channel of distribution of goods?

9. How effective is their Advertising campaigns and general promotional plans?

10. Briefly comment on strategic marketing activities of manufacturing companies in

Nigeria and suggest how the implementation could be more successful.

And other follow-up questions that may arise in the course of the discussions

230

Appendix 2A

Population of the study

S/N. Name Of Firms Sub – Sector

Classification

Head

Office

Geo-Political

Zone

1 Benue Cement Co. Plc Building Materials Benue North- Central

2 Jos Int. Breweries Plc Breweries Plateau North- Central

3 Julius Berger Nigeria Plc Construction F.C.T North- Central

4 Niyamco Plc Ind./Domestic Prdcts Kwara North- Central

5 Rak Unity Pet. Comp. Plc Emerging Markets Kwara North-Central

6 Ashaka Cement Plc Building Materials Gombe North – East

7 Cement Co. Of North. Nig. Plc Building Materials Sokoto North- West

8 Ceramic Manu. Nigeria Plc Building Materials Kano North- West

9 Newpak Plc Emerging Markets Kaduna North- West

10 Northern Nig. Flour Mills Plc Food, Beverages& T Kano North- West

11 P. S. Mandrides And Co. Plc Food, Beverages& T Kano North- West

12 Roads Nigeria Plc Construction Sokoto North-West

13 United Nigeria Textiles Plc Textiles Kaduna North- West

14 Asaba Textile Mill Plc Textiles Delta South- South

15 Ellah Lakes Plc Agriculture Rivers South-South

16 Grommac Industries Plc Agriculture Edo South- South

17 Presco Plc Agriculture Edo South-South

18 W. A. Glass Industries Plc Packaging Rivers South- South

19 Aba Textile Mills Plc Textiles Abia South- East

20 Afrik Pharmaceuticals Plc Emerging Markets Imo South- East

21 Aluminium Extrusion Ind. Plc Ind./Domestic Prdcts Imo South- East

22 Champion Brew. Plc Breweries A/Ibom South- East

23 Cutix Plc Emerging Markets Anambra South- East

24 Ferdinand Oil Mills Plc Food, Beverages& T Enugu South- East

25 Golden Guinea Breweries Plc Breweries Abia South- East

26 Nigercem Plc Building Materials Enugu South- East

27 Premier Breweries Plc Breweries Anambra South-East

28 Udeofson Garment Fact. Nig. Emerging Markets Abia South- East

29 7-Up Bottling Comp. Plc Food, Beverages& T Lagos South-West

30 A. G. Leventis Nigeria Plc Conglomerate Lagos South-West

31 Aboseldehyde Labs. Plc Healthcare Lagos South-West

32 Abplast Productrs Plc Packaging Lagos South-West

33 Academy Press Plc Printing & Pub. Lagos South-West

34 Afprint Nigeria Plc Textiles Lagos South-West

35 African Paints (Nig.) Plc Chemicals& Paints Lagos South-West

36 Afroil Plc Petroleum(Marketing) Lagos South-West

37 Alumaco Plc Ind./Domestic Prdcts Lagos South-West

38 Anino International Plc Emerging Markets Lagos South-West

39 Arbico Plc Construction Lagos South-West

40 Atlas Nigeria Plc Computer&Off.Equipt. Lagos South-West

41 Avon Crowncaps & Cont. Plc Packaging Lagos South-West

231

42 BCN Plc Healthcare Lagos South-West

43 Berger Paints Plc Chemicals& Paints Lagos South-West

44 Beta Glass Co. Plc Packaging Lagos South-West

45 Beco Petroleum Products Plc Petroleum(Marketing) Lagos South-West

46 Cadbury Nigeria Plc Food, Beverages& T Lagos South-West

47 Cap Plc Chemicals& Paints Lagos South-West

48 Capital Oil Plc Emerging Markets Lagos South-West

49 Cappa & D’alberto Plc Construction Lagos South-West

50 Chellarams Plc Conglomerate Lagos South-West

51 Christlieb Plc Healthcare Lagos South-West

52 Conoil Plc Petroleum(Marketing) Lagos South-West

53 Costain (W.A.) Plc Construction Lagos South-West

54 Courtville Commercial Lagos South-West

55 D.N. Meyer Plc Chemicals& Paints Lagos South-West

56 Dangote Cement Plc Building Materials Lagos South-West

57 Dangote Flour Mills Plc Food, Beverages& T Lagos South-West

58 Dangote Sugar Refinery Plc Food, Beverages& T Lagos South-West

59 Dunlop Nigeria Plc Automobile Lagos South-West

60 Ekocorp Plc Healthcare Lagos South-West

61 Epic Dynamics Plc Ind./Domestic Prdcts Lagos South-West

62 Eterna Oil & Gas Plc Petroleum(Marketing) Lagos South-West

63 ETRANZ Healthcare Lagos South-West

64 Evans Medical Plc Healthcare Ogun South-West

65 Fidson Healthcare Plc Healthcare Lagos South-West

66 First Aluminium Nigeria Plc Ind./Domestic Prdcts Lagos South-West

67 Flexible Packaging Plc Emerging Markets Osun South-West

68 Flour Mills Nigeria Plc Food, Beverages& T Lagos South-West

69 Footwear & Accessories Plc Footwear Lagos South-West

70 Foremost Daries Plc Food, Beverages& T Lagos South-West

71 Forte Oil Plc Petroleum(Marketing) Lagos South-West

72 FTN Cocoa Processing Plc Emerging Markets Lagos South-West

73 G. Cappa Plc Construction Lagos South-West

74 Glaxo Smithkline Cons. Plc Healthcare Lagos South-West

75 Guinness Nigeria Plc Breweries Lagos South-West

76 Hallmark Paper Prod. Plc Computer&Off.Equipt. Lagos South-West

77 Honeywell Flour Mills Plc Food &Beverages Lagos South- West

78 HIS Emerging Markets Lagos South-West

79 Incar Nigeria Plc Automobile Lagos South-West

80 Interlinked Technologies Plc Engineering Tech. Lagos South-West

81 International Breweries Plc Breweries Osun South-West

82 Intra Motors Plc Automobile Lagos South-West

83 IPWA Plc Chemicals& Paints Lagos South-West

84 B.O.C. Gases Plc Ind./Domestic Prdcts Lagos South-West

85 John Holt Plc Conglomerate Lagos South-West

86 Juli Plc Emerging Markets Lagos South-West

87 Krabo Nigeria Plc Emerging Markets Lagos South-West

232

88 Lennards Nigeria Plc Footwear Lagos South-West

89 Livestock Feeds Plc Agriculture Lagos South-West

90 Liz-Olofin And Co. Plc Ind./Domestic Prdcts Lagos South-West

91 Longman Nigeria Plc Printing & Pub. Lagos South-West

92 Mass Telecom Innovation Commercial Lagos South-West

93 Maureen Laboratories Plc Healthcare Lagos South-West

94 May & Baker Nigeria Plc Healthcare Lagos South-West

95 McNichols Consolidated Plc Ind./Domestic Prdcts Lagos South-West

96 Mcrison Industries Plc Healthcare Lagos South-West

97 Mobil Oil Nigeria Plc Petroleum(Marketing) Lagos South-West

98 Morison Industries Plc Healthcare Lagos South-West

99 MRS Oil Nigeria Plc Petroleum(Marketing) Lagos South-West

100 MTech Communications Plc Communication Tech. Lagos South-West

101 MUTITREX Emerging Markets Lagos South-West

102 Nampak Nigeria Plc Packaging Lagos South-West

103 National Nigeria Flour Mills Plc Food, Beverages& T Lagos South-West

104 National Salt Co. Nig. Plc Food, Beverages& T Ogun South-West

105 NCR Nigeria Plc Computer&Off.Equipt. Lagos South-West

106 Neimeth Internaional Pharm Healthcare Lagos South-West

107 Nestle Nigeria Plc Food, Beverages& T Lagos South-West

108 Nig. Bottling Co. Plc Food, Beverages& T Lagos South-West

109 Nigeria-German Chemicals Plc Chemicals& Paints Lagos South-West

110 Nigerian Bags Manufacturing Packaging Lagos South-West

111 Nigerian Breweries Plc Breweries Lagos South-West

112 Nigerian Lamps Ind. Plc Ind./Domestic Prdcts Lagos South-West

113 Nigerian Ropes Plc Building Materials Lagos South-West

114 Nigerian Wire And Cable Plc Engineering Tech. Oyo South-West

115 Nigerian Wire Industries Plc Building Materials Lagos South-West

116 Oando Plc Petroleum(Marketing) Lagos South-West

117 Okitipupa Oil Palm. Plc Agriculture Ondo South-West

118 Oluwa Glass Company Plc Ind./Domestic Prdcts Ondo South-West

119 OMATEK Computer&Off.Equipt. Lagos South-West

120 PAINTCOMP Building Materials Lagos South-West

121 P.Z. Industries Plc Conglomerate Lagos South-West

122 Pharma-Deko Plc Healthcare Ogun South-West

123 Poly Products (Nig.) Plc Packaging Lagos South-West

124 Premier Paints Plc Chemicals& Paints Ogun South-West

125 R. T. Briscoe Plc Automobile Lagos South-West

126 Rietzcot Nigeria Co. Plc Automobile Lagos South-West

126 Rokana Industries Plc Emerging Markets Lagos South-West

128 Scoa Nigeria Plc Conglomerate Lagos South-West

129 Stokvis Nigeria Plc Emerging Markets Lagos South-West

130 Thomas Whytt Nigeria Plc Computer&Off.Equipt. Lagos South-West

131 Total Nigeria Plc Petroleum(Marketing) Lagos South-West

132 Tripple Gee And Co. Plc Computer&Off.Equipt. Lagos South-West

133 Tropical Petroleum Plc Emerging Markets Lagos South-West

233

134 UACN Plc Conglomerate Lagos South-West

135 Unilever Nigeria Plc Conglomerate Lagos South-West

136 Union Dicon Salt Plc Food, Beverages& T Lagos South-West

137 Union Ventures & Pet. Plc Emerging Markets Lagos South-West

138 University Press Plc Printing & Pub. Oyo South-West

139 UTC Nigeria Plc Conglomerate Lagos South-West

140 Vitafoam Nigeria Plcf Ind./Domestic Prdcts Lagos South-West

141 Vono Products Plc Ind./Domestic Prdcts Lagos South-West

142 W. A. Alum. Products Plc Emerging Markets Lagos South-West

143 West Africa Glass Industries Emerging Markets Lagos South-West

144 West African Portland Co. Plc Building Materials Lagos South-West

145 Wiggins Teape Nigeria Plc Computer&Off.Equipt. Lagos South-West

Source: Generated by the Author from the Daily official List NSE, December 2011

234

Appendix 2B

List of Sampled Manufacturing Companies for the Study

S/N. Name Of Firms Sub – Sector

Classification

Head

Office

Geo-Political

Zone

1 Benue Cement Co. Plc Building Materials Benue North-

Central

2 Julius Berger Nigeria Plc Construction F.C.T North-

Central

3 Ashaka Cement Plc Building Materials Gombe North – East

4 Cement Co. Of North. Nig. Plc Building Materials Sokoto North- West

5 United Nigeria Textiles Plc Textiles Kaduna North- West

6 Asaba Textile Mill Plc Textiles Delta South- South

7 Grommac Industries Plc Agriculture Edo South- South

8 Presco Plc Agriculture Edo South-South

9 Aba Textile Mills Plc Textiles Abia South- East

10 Afrik Pharmaceuticals Plc Emerging Markets Imo South- East

11 Aluminium Extrusion Ind. Plc Ind./Domestic Prdcts Imo South- East

12 Cutix Plc Emerging Markets Anambra South- East

13 Ferdinand Oil Mills Plc Food, Beverages& T Enugu South- East

14 7-Up Bottling Comp. Plc Food, Beverages& T Lagos South-West

15 A. G. Leventis Nigeria Plc Conglomerate Lagos South-West

16 Aboseldehyde Labs. Plc Healthcare Lagos South-West

17 Abplast Productrs Plc Packaging Lagos South-West

18 Afprint Nigeria Plc Textiles Lagos South-West

19 African Paints (Nig.) Plc Chemicals& Paints Lagos South-West

20 Afroil Plc Petroleum(Marketing) Lagos South-West

21 Alumaco Plc Ind./Domestic Prdcts Lagos South-West

22 Anino International Plc Emerging Markets Lagos South-West

23 Arbico Plc Construction Lagos South-West

24 Avon Crowncaps & Cont. Plc Packaging Lagos South-West

25 BCN Plc Healthcare Lagos South-West

26 Berger Paints Plc Chemicals& Paints Lagos South-West

27 Beta Glass Co. Plc Packaging Lagos South-West

28 Beco Petroleum Products Plc Petroleum(Marketing) Lagos South-West

29 Cadbury Nigeria Plc Food, Beverages& T Lagos South-West

30 Cap Plc Chemicals& Paints Lagos South-West

31 Capital Oil Plc Emerging Markets Lagos South-West

32 Cappa & D’alberto Plc Construction Lagos South-West

33 Chellarams Plc Conglomerate Lagos South-West

34 Christlieb Plc Healthcare Lagos South-West

35 Conoil Plc Petroleum(Marketing) Lagos South-West

36 Costain (W.A.) Plc Construction Lagos South-West

37 Courtville Commercial Lagos South-West

38 D.N. Meyer Plc Chemicals& Paints Lagos South-West

39 Dangote Cement Plc Building Materials Lagos South-West

235

40 Dangote Flour Mills Plc Food, Beverages& T Lagos South-West

41 Dangote Sugar Refinery Plc Food, Beverages& T Lagos South-West

42 Dunlop Nigeria Plc Automobile Lagos South-West

43 Ekocorp Plc Healthcare Lagos South-West

44 Epic Dynamics Plc Ind./Domestic Prdcts Lagos South-West

45 Eterna Oil & Gas Plc Petroleum(Marketing) Lagos South-West

46 Evans Medical Plc Healthcare Ogun South-West

47 Fidson Healthcare Plc Healthcare Lagos South-West

48 First Aluminium Nigeria Plc Ind./Domestic Prdcts Lagos South-West

49 Flour Mills Nigeria Plc Food, Beverages& T Lagos South-West

50 Footwear & Accessories Plc Footwear Lagos South-West

51 Foremost Daries Plc Food, Beverages& T Lagos South-West

52 Forte Oil Plc Petroleum(Marketing) Lagos South-West

53 FTN Cocoa Processing Plc Emerging Markets Lagos South-West

54 G. Cappa Plc Construction Lagos South-West

55 Glaxo Smithkline Cons. Plc Healthcare Lagos South-West

56 Honeywell Flour Mills Plc Food &Beverages Lagos South- West

57 Incar Nigeria Plc Automobile Lagos South-West

58 Intra Motors Plc Automobile Lagos South-West

59 IPWA Plc Chemicals& Paints Lagos South-West

60 B.O.C. Gases Plc Ind./Domestic Prdcts Lagos South-West

61 John Holt Plc Conglomerate Lagos South-West

62 Juli Plc Emerging Markets Lagos South-West

63 Krabo Nigeria Plc Emerging Markets Lagos South-West

64 Lennards Nigeria Plc Footwear Lagos South-West

65 Livestock Feeds Plc Agriculture Lagos South-West

66 Liz-Olofin And Co. Plc Ind./Domestic Prdcts Lagos South-West

67 Maureen Laboratories Plc Healthcare Lagos South-West

68 May & Baker Nigeria Plc Healthcare Lagos South-West

69 Mcrison Industries Plc Healthcare Lagos South-West

70 Mobil Oil Nigeria Plc Petroleum(Marketing) Lagos South-West

71 Morison Industries Plc Healthcare Lagos South-West

72 MRS Oil Nigeria Plc Petroleum(Marketing) Lagos South-West

73 Nampak Nigeria Plc Packaging Lagos South-West

74 National Nigeria Flour Mills Plc Food, Beverages& T Lagos South-West

75 National Salt Co. Nig. Plc Food, Beverages& T Ogun South-West

76 Nestle Nigeria Plc Food, Beverages& T Lagos South-West

77 Nig. Bottling Co. Plc Food, Beverages& T Lagos South-West

78 Nigeria-German Chemicals Plc Chemicals& Paints Lagos South-West

79 Nigerian Bags Manufacturing Packaging Lagos South-West

80 Nigerian Lamps Ind. Plc Ind./Domestic Prdcts Lagos South-West

81 Nigerian Ropes Plc Building Materials Lagos South-West

82 Nigerian Wire Industries Plc Building Materials Lagos South-West

83 Oando Plc Petroleum(Marketing) Lagos South-West

84 Okitipupa Oil Palm. Plc Agriculture Ondo South-West

85 Oluwa Glass Company Plc Ind./Domestic Prdcts Ondo South-West

236

86 P.Z. Industries Plc Conglomerate Lagos South-West

87 Pharma-Deko Plc Healthcare Ogun South-West

88 Poly Products (Nig.) Plc Packaging Lagos South-West

89 R. T. Briscoe Plc Automobile Lagos South-West

90 Rietzcot Nigeria Co. Plc Automobile Lagos South-West

91 Rokana Industries Plc Emerging Markets Lagos South-West

92 Scoa Nigeria Plc Conglomerate Lagos South-West

93 Stokvis Nigeria Plc Emerging Markets Lagos South-West

94 Total Nigeria Plc Petroleum(Marketing) Lagos South-West

95 Tripple Gee And Co. Plc Computer&Off.Equipt. Lagos South-West

96 Tropical Petroleum Plc Emerging Markets Lagos South-West

97 UACN Plc Conglomerate Lagos South-West

98 Unilever Nigeria Plc Conglomerate Lagos South-West

99 Union Dicon Salt Plc Food, Beverages& T Lagos South-West

100 Union Ventures & Pet. Plc Emerging Markets Lagos South-West

101 UTC Nigeria Plc Conglomerate Lagos South-West

102 Vitafoam Nigeria Plcf Ind./Domestic Prdcts Lagos South-West

103 Vono Products Plc Ind./Domestic Prdcts Lagos South-West

104 W. A. Alum. Products Plc Emerging Markets Lagos South-West

105 West African Portland Co. Plc Building Materials Lagos South-West

106 Wiggins Teape Nigeria Plc Computer & off. Equipt.

Source: Generated by the Author from the population of the study (Appendix ii)

237

Appendix 2C

Companies Based on Geo-Political Zones

S/N. State Zone No. of Companies

1 Abia South- East 3

2 Anambra South- East 2

3 Akwa-Ibom South- East 1

4 Benue North- Central 1

5 Delta South- South 1

6 Edo South- South 3

7 Enugu South- East 2

8 FCT North- Central 1

9 Gombe North- East 1

10 Imo South- East 2

11 Kaduna North- West 2

12 Kano North- West 3

13 Kwara North- Central 2

14 Lagos South-West 106

15 Ogun South-West 4

16 Ondo South-West 2

17 Osun South-West 2

18 Oyo South-West 2

19 Plateau North- Central 1

20 Rivers South- South 2

21 Sokoto North- West 2

Total Total Total 145

Source: Nigerian Stock Exchange Daily Official List, December 2011

238

Appendix 3A

Cronbach’s Alpha Reliability Statistics for all Items

Case Processing Summary

N %

Cases Valid 20 100.0

Excludeda 0 .0

Total 20 100.0

a. Listwise deletion based on all variables in the procedure.

Reliability Statistics

Cronbach's Alpha

Cronbach's Alpha

Based on Standardized

Items N of Items

.825 .833 5

Item Statistics: Environmental Factors

Mean Std. Deviation N

Major environmental factors responsible for

the uncertainties in the environment 2.8000 1.70448 20

How environmental factors influence the

implementation of marketing policies &

strategies

3.3500 1.22582 20

Poor infrastructure 2.8000 1.70448 20

Total collapse of basic infrastructure 3.3500 1.22582 20

Absence or collapse of the country’s

Infrastructure 2.7000 1.55935 20

Summary Item Statistics

Mean Minimum Maximum Range

Maximum /

Minimum Variance

N of

Items

Item Means 3.000 2.700 3.350 .650 1.241 .104 5

Item Variances 2.249 1.503 2.905 1.403 1.933 .502 5

239

Item-Total Statistics

Scale Mean

if Item

Deleted

Scale

Variance

if Item

Deleted

Corrected

Item-

Total

Correlatio

n

Squared

Multiple

Correlatio

n

Cronbach's

Alpha if

Item

Deleted

Major environmental factors

responsible for the uncertainties in

the environment

12.2000 20.063 .660 . .779

How environmental factors

influence the implementation of

marketing policies & strategies

11.6500 24.134 .616 . .795

Poor infrastructure 12.2000 20.063 .660 . .779

Total collapse of basic

infrastructures 11.6500 24.134 .616 . .795

Absence or collapse of the

country’s Infrastructure 12.3000 22.011 .588 . .799

Scale Statistics

Mean Variance Std. Deviation N of Items

15.0000 33.053 5.74914 5

Scale: ALL VARIABLES


N %


Excludeda 0 .0

Total 20 100.0


240

Reliability Statistics: Ethical Issues

Cronbach's Alpha

Cronbach's Alpha Based

on Standardized Items N of Items

.720 .737 4

Item Statistics


Major unethical marketing practices 2.8000 1.70448 20

unethical marketing practices impact on the general

performance of companies 3.3500 1.22582 20

Factors responsible for the negative attitude of

marketing executives 2.7000 1.55935 20

The extent to which negative attitudes impact on

performance and customers satisfaction 3.1500 1.75544 20



Maximum /

Minimum Variance

N of

Items

Item Means 3.000 2.700 3.350 .650 1.241 .092 4

Item Variances 2.480 1.503 3.082 1.579 2.051 .500 4

241


Scale Mean

if Item

Deleted

Scale

Variance if

Item

Deleted

Corrected

Item-Total

Correlation

Squared

Multiple

Correlation

Cronbach's

Alpha if

Item

Deleted

Major unethical marketing practices 9.2000 14.379 0.332 0.157 0.768

unethical marketing practices impact

on the general performance of

companies

8.6500 14.555 0.590 0.396 0.632

Factors responsible for the negative

attitude of marketing executives 9.3000 11.905 0.673 0.468 0.556

The extent to which negative attitudes

impact on performance and customers

satisfaction

8.8500 12.239 0.509 0.350 0.662

Scale Statistics


12.0000 21.579 4.64531 4

Scale: ALL VARIABLES


N %


Excludeda 0 .0

Total 20 100.0


242

Reliability Statistics: Market Performance

Cronbach's Alpha

Cronbach's Alpha Based on Standardized

Items N of Items

.654 .642 6

Item Statistics

Mean

Std.

Deviation N

Superior performance and competitive advantage 2.8000 1.70448 20

Performance indicators being used 3.3500 1.22582 20

Performance measurement criteria 3.6000 1.95744 20

Adequacy of funds 2.7000 1.55935 20

Inadequacy of funds 3.1500 1.75544 20

Relevance of strategic marketing to the country’s

manufacturing sector. 1.2000 .41039 20



Maximum /

Minimum Variance

N of

Items

Item Means 2.800 1.200 3.600 2.400 3.000 .727 6

Item Variances 2.320 .168 3.832 3.663 22.750 1.703 6

Scale Statistics


16.8000 30.589 5.53078 6

243


N %


Excludeda 0 .0

Total 20 100.0


Reliability Statistics: Competitive Advantage

Cronbach's Alpha

Cronbach's Alpha Based on

Standardized Items N of Items

.722 .735 2

Item Statistics


Pricing strategy adopted by your company 3.3500 1.22582 20

The strategic marketing activities which help in gaining

competitive advantage 2.7000 1.55935 20



Maximum /

Minimum Variance

N of

Items

Item Means 3.025 2.700 3.350 .650 1.241 .211 2

Item Variances 1.967 1.503 2.432 .929 1.618 .431 2

244


Scale Mean

if Item

Deleted

Scale

Variance

if Item

Deleted

Corrected

Item-Total

Correlation

Squared

Multiple

Correlation

Cronbach's

Alpha if

Item Deleted

Pricing strategy adopted by

your company 2.7000 2.432 .581 .338 .a

The strategic marketing

activities which help in gaining

competitive advantage

3.3500 1.503 .581 .338 .a

a. The value is negative due to a negative average covariance among items.

Scale Statistics


6.0500 6.155 2.48098 2


N %


Excludeda 0 .0

Total 20 100.0


Reliability Statistics: Innovation Orientation

Cronbach's Alpha


Standardized Items N of Items

.720 .737 4

245

Item Statistics


How often do you modify your product 2.8000 1.70448 20

Factors responsible for product modification 3.3500 1.22582 20

Particular features of the product that

customer s are satisfied with 2.7000 1.55935 20

what differentiate company’s product from

that of other competitors 3.1500 1.75544 20



Maximum /

Minimum Variance

N of

Items

Item Means 3.000 2.700 3.350 .650 1.241 .092 4

Item Variances 2.480 1.503 3.082 1.579 2.051 .500 4


Scale

Mean if

Item

Deleted

Scale

Variance if

Item

Deleted

Corrected

Item-Total

Correlation

Squared

Multiple

Correlation

Cronbac

h's

Alpha if

Item

Deleted

How often do you modify your

product 9.2000 14.379 .332 .157 .768

Factors responsible for product

modification 8.6500 14.555 .590 .396 .632

Particular features of the product

that customer s are satisfied with 9.3000 11.905 .673 .468 .556

246


Scale

Mean if

Item

Deleted

Scale

Variance if

Item

Deleted

Corrected

Item-Total

Correlation

Squared

Multiple

Correlation

Cronbac

h's

Alpha if

Item

Deleted

How often do you modify your

product 9.2000 14.379 .332 .157 .768

Factors responsible for product

modification 8.6500 14.555 .590 .396 .632

Particular features of the product

that customer s are satisfied with 9.3000 11.905 .673 .468 .556

what differentiate company’s

product from that of other

competitors

8.8500 12.239 .509 .350 .662

Scale Statistics


12.0000 21.579 4.64531 4


N %


Excludeda 0 .0

Total 20 100.0


247

Reliability Statistics: Market Orientation

Cronbach's Alpha

Cronbach's Alpha Based on Standardized

Items N of Items

.803 .676 14

Item Statistics

Mean

Std.

Deviation N

Product life cycle (PLC) strategies 1.7000 .80131 20

Stage of the PLC that calls for more strategic marketing

activities 1.8000 .95145 20

Best strategy implementation type 2.8000 1.70448 20

Ways of providing value and satisfaction to customers 2.8000 1.70448 20

Most influencing concept on organizations’ strategic

marketing activities 2.8000 1.70448 20

Nature of promotional activities 2.8000 1.70448 20

Alternative promotional tools 3.3500 1.22582 20

Advertising media 2.7000 1.55935 20

Effectiveness of the advertising media 3.1500 1.75544 20

Does your coy initiate price changes periodically 1.3000 .47016 20

If yes, how 2.5000 1.19208 20

If No, Why 1.1500 .36635 20

The understanding of Nigerian manufacturers of strategic

marketing concept. 1.5500 .51042 20

Percentage of manufacturers applying the concept 1.9000 1.02084 20



Maximum /

Minimum Variance

N of

Items

Item Means 2.307 1.150 3.350 2.200 2.913 .514 14

Item Variances 1.662 .134 3.082 2.947 22.961 1.327 14

248


Scale

Mean if

Item

Deleted

Scale

Variance

if Item

Deleted

Corrected

Item-Total

Correlation

Squared

Multiple

Correlatio

n

Cronba

ch's

Alpha

if Item

Deleted

Product life cycle (PLC) strategies 30.6000 92.042 -.078 . .817

Stage of the PLC that calls for more

strategic marketing activities 30.5000 89.316 .070 . .812

Best strategy implementation type 29.5000 63.947 .904 . .738

Ways of providing value and

satisfaction to customers 29.5000 63.947 .904 . .738

Most influencing concept on

organizations’ strategic marketing

activities

29.5000 63.947 .904 . .738

Nature of promotional activities 29.5000 63.947 .904 . .738

Alternative promotional tools 28.9500 82.261 .347 . .797

Advertising media 29.6000 76.253 .470 . .787

Effectiveness of the advertising media 29.1500 78.766 .309 . .806

Does your coy initiate price changes

periodically 31.0000 93.368 -.232 . .816

If yes, how 29.8000 84.695 .245 . .804

If No, Why 31.1500 93.082 -.245 . .814

The understanding of Nigerian

manufacturers of strategic marketing

concept.

30.7500 88.618 .271 . .802

Percentage of manufacturers applying

the concept 30.4000 86.884 .187 . .806

249

Scale Statistics


32.3000 91.484 9.56474 14


N %


Excludeda 0 .0

Total 20 100.0

a. Listwise deletion based on all

variables in the procedure.


N %


Excludeda 0 .0

Total 20 100.0

a. Listwise deletion based on

all variables in the procedure.

Reliability Statistics: Marketing Assets &

Capabilities

Cronbach's Alpha


Standardized Items

N of

Items

.798 .787 13

250

Item Statistics

Mean

Std.

Deviation N

Factors responsible for the implementation of marketing policies &

strat. 2.8000 1.70448 20

Kinds of strategies 3.3500 1.22582 20

Effectiveness of the strategy in achieving marketing objectives 2.7000 1.55935 20

The significant relationship between strategic marketing & coy

perform. 3.1500 1.75544 20

Effectiveness of strategic marketing planning 2.4500 1.23438 20

Implication of psychological factors on strategic planning process 2.4500 1.43178 20

Company’s marketing assets & capabilities 3.4000 1.42902 20

Sales volume & profitability for the last five years 2.8000 1.70448 20

The impact of strategic marketing on growth potential 3.3500 1.22582 20

The particular targeted group of potential customers 3.3500 1.22582 20

Channel of distribution of goods by marketing companies 2.8000 1.70448 20

Modes of transportation used employed by companies 3.3500 1.22582 20

The effectiveness of the modes and channels in delivering goods to

the right customers at the right place and the right time 1.3000 .92338 20



Maximum /

Minimum Variance

N of

Items

Item Means 2.865 1.300 3.400 2.100 2.615 .345 13

Item Variances 2.054 .853 3.082 2.229 3.614 .526 13

Scale Statistics


37.2500 101.461 10.07276 13

251

Appendix 3B

Descriptive Statistics and Chi-square Test Results

Descriptive Statistics

N Minimum Maximum Mean

Std.

Deviation

Significant Relationship Between

Strategic Marketing & Company

Performance (Agree)

96 4.00 5.00 4.6771 .47005

Strategic Marketing Activities 96 1.00 5.00 4.0937 .98492

Effective Advertising Media 96 3.00 5.00 4.3021 .56419

Modes and Channels of Distribution of

Goods to Customers 96 1.00 5.00 3.9792 .98386

Relevance of the Implementation of

Strategic Marketing Policies to the

Survival of firms

96 4.00 5.00 4.7292 .44672

Valid N (List wise) 96

Chi-Square Test

Test Statistics

significant relationship agree

Chi-Square 12.042a

Df 1

Asymp. Sig. .001

a. 0 cells (.0%) have expected frequencies less than 5. The minimum expected cell

frequency is 48.0.

Frequencies

Significant relationship agree

Observed N Expected N Residual

Agree 31 48.0 -17.0

strongly agree 65 48.0 17.0

Total 96

252

Chi-Square Test

Test Statistics

strategic marketing activities

Chi-Square 92.646a

Df 4

Asymp. Sig. .000

a. 0 cells (.0%) have expected frequencies less than 5. The minimum expected cell frequency

is 19.2.

Frequencies

strategic marketing activities


strongly disagreed 5 19.2 -14.2

Disagreed 2 19.2 -17.2

Uncertain 6 19.2 -13.2

Agree 49 19.2 29.8

strongly agree 34 19.2 14.8

Total 96

Chi-Square Test

Test Statistics

Effective Advertising Media

Chi-Square 42.438a

Df 2

Asymp. Sig. .000

a. 0 cells (.0%) have expected frequencies less than 5. The minimum expected cell frequency

is 32.0.

253

Frequencies

Effectve Advertising Media


Uncertain 5 32.0 -27.0

Effective 57 32.0 25.0

strongly effective 34 32.0 2.0

Total 96

Chi-Square Test

Test Statistics

adequacy of funds

Chi-Square 34.000a

Df 3

Asymp. Sig. .000

a. 0 cells (.0%) have expected frequencies less than 5. The minimum expected cell

frequency is 24.0.

Frequencies

Adequacy of Funds


it smoothens the operations of the company 46 24.0 22.0

it ensures expansion and growth of business 22 24.0 -2.0

it helps compete favourably with competitors 6 24.0 -18.0

it motivates employees for maximum

productivity 22 24.0 -2.0

Total 96

254

Chi-Square Test

Test Statistics

how relevant is strategic marketing to the manufacturing sector and mark

activities

Chi-Square 20.167a

Df 1

Asymp. Sig. .000

a. 0 cells (.0%) have expected frequencies less than 5. The minimum expected cell frequency is

48.0.

Frequencies

how relevant is strategic marketing to the manufacturing sector and mark activities


Relevant 26 48.0 -22.0

very relevant 70 48.0 22.0

Total 96

255

Appendix 3C

Correlation Analysis Results

CP IMPS FI AME EU ACI

CP Pearson Correlation 1 .786** -.581** .514** .446** .790**

Sig. (2-tailed) .000 .006 .000 .000 .000

N 96 96 96 96 96 96

IMPS Pearson Correlation .786** 1 -.458* .466** .193 .553**

Sig. (2-tailed) .000 .011 .000 .060 .000

N 96 96 96 96 96 96

FI Pearson Correlation -.581** -.458* 1 -.313** -.223* .074

Sig. (2-tailed) .006 .011 .002 .029 .475

N 96 96 96 96 96 96

AME Pearson Correlation .514** .466** -.313** 1 .050 .588**

Sig. (2-tailed) .000 .000 .002 .628 .000

N 96 96 96 96 96 96

EU Pearson Correlation .446** .193 -.223* .050 1 -.022

Sig. (2-tailed) .000 .060 .029 .628 .830

N 96 96 96 96 96 96

ACI Pearson Correlation .790** .553** .074 .588** -.022 1

Sig. (2-tailed) .000 .000 .475 .000 .830

N 96 96 96 96 96 96

**. Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed).

*. Correlation is significant at the 0.05 level (2-tailed).

256

Variables Entered/Removedb

Model Variables Entered

Variables

Removed Method

1 ACI, FI, EU,IMPS, AMEa . Enter

a. All requested variables entered.

b. Dependent Variable: CP

Model Summaryb

Model R

R

Square

Adjusted R

Square

Std. Error

of the

Estimate

Change Statistics

Durbin-

Watson

R

Square

Change F Change df1 df2

Sig. F

Change

1 .316a .410 .350 .0595446 .350 19.941 5 90 .002 .844

a. Predictors: (Constant) ACI, FI, EU, IMPS, AME

b. Dependent Variable: CP

ANOVAb

Model

Sum of

Squares Df Mean Square F Sig.

Regression 35.36 5 7.07 19.94 .002a

Residual 31.910 90 .355

Total 67.27 95

a. Predictors: (Constant), FI,ACI,IMPS,AME,EU

b. Dependent Variable: CP(proxy by Net profit)

257

Coefficientsa

Model

Unstandardized

Coefficients

Standardi

zed

Coefficie

nts

T Sig.

95%

Confidence

Interval for B

Collinearity

Statistics

B

Std.

Error Beta

Lower

Bound

Upper

Bound Tolerance VIF

1 (Constant) -.562 .065 -1.766 .007 -1.035 .061

IMPS 2.676 .180 .271 3.861 .005 1.299 4.053 .316 3.167

FI .066 .051 .160 .166 .005 -.725 .856 .710 1.409

AME -1.415 .023 -.179 -2.155 .003 -2.719 -.110 .196 5.107

EU .470 .078 .120 .993 .546 -.470 1.409 .447 2.237

ACI 2.236 .026 -.154 3.788 .001 1.063 3.409 .253 3.957

a. Dependent Variable: CP

Collinearity Diagnosticsa

Mode

l

Dimensi

on

Eigenval

ue

Condition

Index

Variance Proportions

(Constant) IMPS FI AME EU ACI

1 1 4.005 1.000 .01 .01 .00 .00 .01 .01

2 1.223 1.810 .02 .02 .29 .00 .01 .00

3 .839 2.185 .01 .05 .00 .01 .18 .04

4 .437 3.027 .05 .24 .09 .07 .08 .00

5 .274 3.826 .05 .12 .12 .00 .23 .23

6 .184 4.662 .85 .03 .47 .08 .01 .00

a. Dependent Variable: cp

258

Residuals Statisticsa

Minimum Maximum Mean Std. Deviation N

Predicted Value

-.420299 9.805298 1.910443E0 2.7199253 96

Residual

-2.6276040E0 3.4247017E0

-

1.2102587E-

15

1.3763979 96

Std. Predicted Value -.857 2.903 .000 1.000 96

Std. Residual -1.848 2.408 .000 .968 96

a. Dependent Variable: cp

259

Appendix 4

Final measurement items for each construct.

Market orientation

1. Marketing objectives and strategies are driven by the creation of customer satisfaction

2. Competitive strategies are based on understanding customer needs

3. Business functions are integrated to serve market needs

4. Business strategies are driven by increasing value for customers

5. Our managers understand how employees can contribute to value for customers

Innovation orientation

1. We are more innovative than our competitors in deciding what methods to use in

achieving our targets and objectives

2. We are more innovative than our competitors in initiating new procedures or systems

3. We are more innovative than our competitors in developing new ways of achieving our

targets and objectives

4. We are more innovative than our competitors in initiating changes in the job content

and work methods of our staff

Marketing Assets & Capabilities

1. Strong financial management

2. Effective human resource management

3. Good operations management expertise

4. Good marketing management ability

260

5. Good at creating relationships with key customers or customer groups

6. Good at maintaining and enhancing relationships with key customers

Competitive advantage

1. Our competitive advantage is difficult for competitors to copy because it uses

resources only we have access to

2. It took time to build our competitive advantage and competitors would find it time-

consuming to follow a similar route

Market performance

1. Sales volume achieved relative to main competitors

2. Market share achieved relative to main competitors

3. Profit Margins Achieved relative to main competitors

4. Return on Investment relative to main competitors

5. Overall Profit Margins Achieved relative to main competitors

Ethical Issues

1. Positive Managerial Attitude

2. Morality

3. Social Criticisms

261

Environmental factors

1. Environmental Scanning & Analysis

2. Market opportunity analysis

3. SWOT Analysis

4. Marketing Synergies

262

Appendix 5A

Spread of Dichotomous Scale used in the Analysis to measure the presence or

absence of certain qualities of the qualitative data variables.

COMPANIES IMPS FI AME EU ACI

1. 1 0 1 1 1

2 1 0 1 1 1

3 0 1 1 0 1

4 0 0 1 0 1

5 0 0 0 1 0

6 0 0 1 0 1

7 0 0 0 0 0

8 0 0 0 0 0

9 0 0 1 0 0

10 0 0 1 1 0

11 0 1 0 0 0

12 0 0 0 1 0

13 0 1 0 0 0

14 0 0 0 0 0

15 1 0 1 0 1

16 0 1 0 1 1

17 1 0 1 0 1

18 0 1 0 0 1

19 1 0 1 1 1

20 1 0 1 1 1

21 0 1 1 0 1

22 0 0 1 0 1

23 0 0 0 1 0

24 0 0 1 0 1

25 0 0 0 0 0

26 0 0 0 0 0

27 0 0 1 0 0

28 0 0 1 1 0

29 0 1 0 0 0

30 0 0 0 1 0

31 0 1 0 0 0

32 0 0 0 0 0

33 1 0 1 0 1

34 0 0 1 0 1

35 0 0 0 0 0

36 0 0 0 0 0

263

37 0 0 1 0 0

38 0 0 1 1 0

39 0 1 0 0 0

40 0 0 0 1 0

41 0 1 0 0 0

42 0 0 0 0 0

43 1 0 1 0 1

44 0 1 0 1 1

45 1 0 1 0 1

46 0 1 0 0 1

47 1 0 1 1 1

48 1 0 1 1 1

49 0 1 1 0 1

50 0 0 1 0 1

51 0 0 0 1 0

52 0 0 1 0 1

53 0 0 0 0 0

54 0 0 0 0 0

55 0 0 1 0 0

56 0 0 1 1 0

57 0 1 0 0 0

58 0 0 0 1 0

59 0 1 0 0 0

60 0 0 0 0 0

61 0 0 0 0 0

62 0 0 0 0 0

63 0 0 1 0 0

64 0 0 1 1 0

65 0 1 0 0 0

66 0 0 0 1 0

67 0 1 0 0 0

68 0 0 0 0 0

69 1 0 1 0 1

70 0 1 0 1 1

71 1 0 1 0 1

72 0 1 0 0 1

73 1 0 1 1 1

74 1 0 1 1 1

75 0 1 1 0 1

76 0 0 1 0 1

264

77 0 0 0 1 0

78 0 0 1 0 1

79 0 0 0 0 0

80 0 0 0 0 0

81 0 0 1 0 0

82 0 0 1 1 0

83 0 1 0 0 0

84 0 0 0 1 0

85 0 1 0 0 0

86 0 0 0 0 0

87 1 0 1 0 1

88 0 0 1 0 1

89 0 0 0 0 0

90 0 0 0 0 0

91 0 0 1 0 0

92 0 0 1 1 0

93 0 1 0 0 0

94 0 1 1 0 1

95 0 0 1 0 1

96 0 0 0 1 0

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