Удк 339.138
T. DANKO, PhD, NTU “KhPI”,
AL. KARAVAN, student NTU
“KhPI”
MARKETING AUDIT:
TRENDS AND APPROACHES
Розглянуто
сучасні підходи до маркетингового аудиту. Визначено основні елементи сучасної
концепції маркетингового аудиту, до яких належить аудит маркетингової стратегії, аудит маркетингової
функції, аудит маркетингового середовища та оцінка результатів маркетингової
діяльності. Запропоновано включити до процесу маркетингового аудиту на
початковому етапі процедуру бенчмаркінгу.
Рассмотрены современные подходы к маркетинговому
аудиту. Определены основные элементы современной концепции маркетингового
аудита, к
которым относиттся аудит маркетинговой стратегии, аудит маркетинговой функции,
аудит маркетингового среды и оценка результатов маркетинговой деятельности. Предложено включить
в процесс
маркетингового аудита на начальном
этапе процедуру бенчмаркинга..
The conceptual frameworks of the marketing audit have
been introduced by different contributors since the late 1950s. Nowadays when
almost all companies understand the significant role of marketing in an
organization they more or less efficiently implement marketing practices. The
marketing audit is a fundamental part of the marketing management process. It
is the major tool for marketing performance evaluation. Nevertheless, there is
no single vision among researchers about how to define marketing audit and how
to conduct it.
The first
researcher who took an interest in this problem was the American researcher
Eric H. Shaw. He provided the historical analysis of literature on marketing
efficiency and performance evaluation from 1903 till 1985 and sorted out four
main periods of its evolution: Early Period (1900-1939), Middle Period
(1940-1959), Modern Period (1960-1969) and Contemporary Period (1970-1985) [1].
The next
researchers who devoted much attention to this problem were Mehdi Taghian and
Robin N. Shaw. They studied the academic literature on marketing audit from
1977 to 1997 and proved that the «conduct of the
marketing audit» and «implementation of the recommendations of the marketing
audit» are positively and significantly associated with the «market share»
performance measure [2].
The most
recent study of this problem was provided by the Russian researcher Alekseyeva
in 2010. She has systematized all existing approaches into four main groups
[4]. Nevertheless, the comprehensive approach to marketing audit still needs
further development.
The major
objective of this paper is to review trends and approaches to marketing audit
in existing academic literature that might provide the basics for the
development of the comprehensive approach. Thus the research questions of this
study are as follows:
1.
What different approaches to
marketing audit there exist and in what ways they are different?
2.
Is it possible to define a
comprehensive approach to marketing audit?
The method of the study is based on the analysis of research literature
in this area. The existing approaches to marketing audit can be divided into
several major groups. Many researchers view marketing audit mostly from the
results of the performance angle.
Kotler, Gregor, Rodgers III were pioneers in the field of marketing
audit. They have defined major features of marketing audit and proposed their
own model of marketing audit [5].
Taghian and Shaw suggest that marketing audit can be viewed as an intelligence
gathering, processing and analysis centre providing continuous assistance to
marketing management decision making process.
Furthermore they attempted to explore and profile the current practice of the
marketing audit in larger Australian firms [2, 3].
Such Taiwan researchers as Wann-Yih and Chen-Su have made a considerable
contribution into development of marketing audit concept. The study mainly
provides managers with the concept of integrating the MEC, marketing audit and
resource-based view for enhancing competitive advantage [6].
The French researcher Choueifaty views marketing audit as a systematic
control procedure specially designed to impartially appraise, through
comprehensive checklists, critical marketing issues. More specifically, a
marketing audit is a review of the internal and external marketing components
and factors that usually affect the organization’s overall performance,
positioning and corporate image over a certain period of time. In addition,
Choueifaty defines seven mandatory issues need to be raised prior to any audit
procedure [7].
Various Russian researchers contributed a lot in the study of marketing
audit concept. However, even within the borders of one country there is no
consensus among researchers about defining and conducting marketing audit. Such
Russian researcher as Volkova has developed marketing activity audit program
which consists of six major procedures. According to her arguments this program
helps managers to concentrate attention on the most urgent and important issues
in marketing sphere [8]. According to the researcher Pelihov all existing
methods of marketing effectiveness evaluation process can be divided into four
major groups: qualitative, quantitative, sociological and grade-based methods
[9]. Alekseyeva views marketing audit as the subsystem of a strategic audit.
She suggests a concept of «strategic marketing audit», which according to them
enables a company to formulate and to correct a marketing policy [4].
Hershberger, Osmonbekov and Donthu suggest that benchmarking marketing
performance is essential in marketing audit process. Moreover, they consider
that benchmarking has been used extensively in evaluating business and
marketing practices, it has largely been a qualitative task, with no
quantitative methodology for assistance. They have shown that Data Envelopment
Analysis can be a powerful technique to assist managers in their benchmarking
activities [10].
The British researchers Ambler, Kokkinaki, Puntoni have developed a generalized
framework of marketing around five measurement categories and three criteria
for the assessment of a metrics system [11].
The researchers Grewal, Iyer, Kamakura, Mehrotra and Sharma study marketing
audit on global level. They have proposed their own evaluation of subsidiary
level marketing operations, and suggested that a simultaneous examination of marketing
process and marketing outcome performance enables a global corporation to gain
strategic, operational, and diagnostic insights into the performance of its subsidiaries
[12].
The researcher Thomas suggests that three different levels of marketing
activity measurement should be distinguished: marketing at the company wide
level, the functional activities conducted by professional marketing managers
and the budgetary and control function in the costs charged to marketing.
Furthermore, he defines seven major components of the marketing excellence
framework [13].
Finally, the researchers Pont and Shaw in their study
distinguish objective and subjective, financial and non-financial measures of
marketing performance assessment. They have identified two key issues.
Firstly, there seems to be a clear preference for subjective performance
measures by researchers. Secondly, their review has
shown that the use of multiple measures, both financial and non-financial, is
necessary to fully measure the performance concept [14].
The reviewed studies can be systematized into the
general framework that is finalized at the Table 1.
Table 1
Marketing
Audit Components Systematization
|
|
Researcher |
Year |
Marketing strategy audit |
Marketing environment audit |
Benchmarking marketing performance |
Marketing function audit |
Results of marketing performance assessment (indicators) |
|
1 |
2 |
3 |
4 |
5 |
6 |
7 |
8 |
|
1.
|
P. Kotler W.T. Gregor, W.H.
Rodgers III [5] |
1977 |
|
X |
|
X |
|
|
2.
|
M. Taghian R.N. Shaw
[2,3] |
2002 |
|
X |
|
X |
|
|
3.
|
Wu
Wann-Yih Fu
Chen-Su [6] |
2009 |
|
X |
|
X |
|
|
4.
|
F. Choueifaty
[7] |
2008 |
|
X |
|
X |
X |
|
1 |
2 |
3 |
4 |
5 |
6 |
7 |
8 |
|
5.
|
О. Volkova
[8] |
2009 |
X |
X |
|
X |
X |
|
6.
|
D.
Pelihov [9] |
2008 |
|
X |
|
X |
X |
|
7.
|
I.
Alekseyeva[4] |
2010 |
X |
X |
|
X |
X |
|
8.
|
E. K.
Hershberger T. Osmonbekov N. Donthu
[10] |
2001 |
|
|
X |
X |
|
|
9.
|
T. Ambler F. Kokkinaki S.
Puntoni D. Riley
[11] |
2001 |
|
|
X |
X |
X |
|
10.
|
D. Grewal, G. R.
Iyer W. A. Kamakura A. Mehrotra A. Sharma [12] |
2004 |
|
|
X |
X |
X |
|
11.
|
M. Thomas
[13] |
2000 |
|
|
|
X |
X |
|
12.
|
M. Pont R. Shaw [14] |
2003 |
|
|
|
|
X |
In conclusion, the comprehensive framework of
marketing audit should include five major components:
- Marketing Strategy Audit
- Marketing Practices or Function Audit
- Marketing Environment Review
- Marketing Results Assessment
- Benchmarking
Marketing Performance
This study shows that none of the existing marketing audit frameworks contains
all these components (See Table 1). Therefore, the future research might be
directed towards developing a comprehensive marketing audit framework that will
include all these five mandatory components.
References: 1. Shaw,
E. (1987), «Marketing efficiency and performance: an historical analysis»,
in Nevett, T., Hollander, S.C. (Eds), Marketing in Three Eras: Proceedings of the
Fourth Marketing History Conference, Michigan State University, Lansing, MI,
pp.181-200. 2. Taghian, M./Shaw, R. (1998): The Marketing Audit and Business
Performance: A Review and Research Agenda, Proceedings of the Australian and
New Zealand Marketing Academy Conference, University of Otago, Dunedin/NZ, pp.
2557-2571.3. Taghian, M./Shaw, R. (2002): The Marketing Audit and Business
Performance: An Empirical Study of Large Australian Companies, Proceedings of
the Australian and New Zealand Marketing Academy Conference, Deakin University,
Geelong/Victoria, pp. 3151-3157. 4. Алексеева И.В. Теоретико-методологические
основы стратегического маркетингового аудита коммерческой организации –
«Современные наукоемкие технологии», № 2, 2010 – С. 132-135. 5. Philip Kotler,
William Gregor and William Rodgers (1977), «The Marketing Audit Comes of
Age,» Sloan Management Review, Winter, 25-44. 6. Wu Wann-Yih, Fu Chen-Su (2009), «Services Officer Cognitions
Toward Marketing Planning: A Hierarchical Cognition of Marketing Audit Model»
African Journal of Business Management Vol. 3 (6), pp. 260-267, June 2009.
Поступила в редколлегию 17.03.10