The Georgia Center's Department of Marketing Services this past year conducted an internal "marketing readiness" study as part of its strategic planning process. Discussion of the findings of the study, as well as of the procedures involved, is presented below. You may recognize a familiar situation or challenge, strength or weakness, that may be useful as you plan the marketing activities for your organization.
The Department of Marketing Services, within the Division of Communication Services, surveyed the Georgia Center's four divisions concerning their marketing practices. The goal of this study was twofold Ð (1) to further sensitize personnel to the marketing process and (2) to establish a "baseline" of the Georgia Center's capability for marketing processes.
There are several methods or approaches to performing a marketing readiness survey or audit that range from a simple "marketing I.Q. test" with a limited number of questions to a more elaborate marketing audit that examines major marketing concerns at a considerable level of detail. Since the goal was to establish a "baseline" of marketing skills existent at the Center, Marketing Services chose the more detailed approach.
What follows is a brief description of the survey. You may recognize a familiar situation or challenge, strength, or weakness at your organization. It is important to remember this was the situation at the Georgia Center when the survey was conducted. The situation at every organization changes with time. Each organization should design their own survey instruments and sampling approaches according to their unique situations, needs, and goals.
The survey looked at six fundamental areas of marketing to assess the Center's level of marketing knowledge, skills, and capabilities and included a section of questions about the respondents, as follows:
The survey questions about customer and competitive research, strategic planning, positioning, budgeting, organizational structure, cost-effectiveness, what drives new product development, and so on served to define the marketing process. The survey found that more needs to be done to sensitize staff to the marketing process, and pointed to areas for additional research. By participating in this survey respondents also learned more about the Department of Marketing Services and the many ways it can serve them.
The survey results indicated the existence, Center-wide, of a basic level of understanding of and capability for the marketing process. There are many pockets of excellence and some areas of sophisticated understanding and execution. The Center staff exhibited an understanding of many marketing concepts. There is room for improvement, however, in putting good marketing procedures into practice.
The process of developing, implementing, participating in, and examining the results of the marketing readiness survey as well as the survey results themselves, served the twofold purpose of sensitizing personnel to the marketing concept and established the Center's "baseline" of capability for the marketing process.
This marketing audit model could be useful on a departmental, divisional, or organizational level for further development of the marketing concept.
For more information, contact Michael F. Healy, Research and Planning, Department of Marketing Services, Georgia Center for Continuing Education, The University of Georgia, Athens, Georgia 30602-3603, 706-542-6793. e-mail: healym@gactr.uga.edu.
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