Business Ethics: Three issues or factors considered in making marketing decisions

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The Marketing Process

Under the marketing concept, the firm must find a way to discover unfulfilled customer needs and bring to market products that satisfy those needs. The process of doing so can be modeled in a sequence of steps: the situation is analyzed to identify opportunities, the strategy is formulated for a value proposition, tactical decisions are made, the plan is implemented and the results are monitored.

The Marketing Process

Situation Analysis

Marketing Strategy

Marketing Mix Decisions

Implementation & Control

The Factor considered in process:

The situation analysis can be viewed in terms an analysis of the external environment factors and an internal analysis of the firm itself. The external environment can be described in terms of macro-environmental factors that broadly affect many firms, and micro-environmental factors closely related to the specific situation of the firm.

There are several factors that can be used to add structure to the situation analysis:
? 5'C factors - company, customers, competitors, collaborators, climate. Company represents the internal situation; the other four cover aspects of the external situation
? For macro-environmental political, economic, societal, and technological factors. A PEST analysis can be used as the "climate" portion of the 5 C framework.

Once the best opportunity to satisfy unfulfilled customer needs is identified, a strategic plan for pursuing the opportunity can be developed. Market research will provide specific market information that will permit the firm to select the target market segment and optimally position the offering within that segment. The result is a value proposition to the target market. The marketing strategy then involves Segmentation of Market, Targeting (target market selection), Positioning the product within the target market and Value proposition to the target market.

Detailed tactical decisions then are made for the controllable parameters of the marketing mix. The action items include:
? 5'P : Product, Place, Price, Promotion, people (Internal and External)
? Product development - specifying, designing, and producing the first units of the product.
? Distribution contracts
? Promotional campaign development

Marketing ethics

The question of whether or not marketing is completely unethical is the question most critics of marketing seem to be focusing their attention on. Ethics provide the basis for deciding whether a particular action is morally good or morally bad. But, each individual develops different opinions, moral standards, and ...