Marketing plays a key role in the company’s strategic planning.

1. Marketing provides a guiding philosophy—the marketing concept.

2. Marketing provides inputs to strategic planners.

3. Marketing designs strategies for reaching the unit’s objectives.

Customer value is the key ingredient in the marketer’s formula for success.

In addition to customer relationship management, marketers must also practice partner relationship management. 

Partnering with Other Company Departments

Each company department is a link in the company’s value chain.

Each company department can be thought of as a link in the company’s internal value chain.

Success depends on how well the various departments coordinate their activities.

A company’s value chain is only as strong as its weakest link.

Ideally, a company’s different functions should work in harmony to produce value for consumers.

Other departments may resist marketing’s efforts because their actions can increase purchasing costs, disrupt production schedules, increase inventories, and create budget headaches.

Yet marketers must find ways to get all departments to “think consumer.”

Partnering with Others in the Marketing System

Firms need to look beyond their own value chains and into the value chains of their suppliers, distributors, and customers.

Companies today are partnering with the other members of the supply chain to improve the performance of the customer value delivery network.

Competition takes place between the entire value-delivery networks created by competitors.