Marketing Management and Strategy ^{4th Ed.}

Marketing Management and Strategy, fourth edition, is a concise, practical management guide to the latest ideas in marketing and strategy for MBA and executive courses. Adopted by many leading business schools, the book focuses on key issues relevant to modern business, drawing on the authors' experience as consultants to many major international companies.

With its interdisciplinary approach, this book gives practical, step-by-step guies to developing a marketing strategy, making pricing decisions and developing advertising and communications plans.

1. Management: Objectives and Tasks
   • Objectives and success
   • Stakeholders' objectives and constraints
   • Developing balanced objectives
   • Developing a strategy
   • Criteria for strategic success
   • Strategic intent
   • Core competencies
   • Organisational dimensions
   • Summary
   • Questions
   • Notes
2. The Customer-Led Business
   • The theory of marketing
   • The customer-led business
   • Success
   • Focus on needs
   • Organisation
   • Competitive advantage
   • Entire business
   • Customers as assets
   • Creating the customer-led business
   • Summary
   • Questions
   • Notes
3. Segmentation, Positioning and the Marketing Mix
   • Market segmentation
   • Dynamic targeting strategies
   • Creating the differential advantage
   • Positioning strategy
   • The marketing plan
   • Market-centred organisations
   • Summary
   • Questions
   • Notes
4. Strategic Market Planning
   • Adapting to change
   • Evolution of planning systems
   • Corporate strategy
   • Business unit strategy
   • Summary
   • Questions
   • Notes
5. Market Dynamics and Competitive Strategy
   • Cycles of confusion
   • Market dynamics
   • The evolution of markets
   • Formulating marketing strategies
   • Niche companies
   • Summary
   • Questions
   • Notes
6. Building Successful Brands
   • Products and brands
   • Added values
   • How to build brands
   • The benefits of brands
   • Multibranding, line and brand extensions
   • Revitalisations, repositioning and rationalisation
   • Regional and global brands
   • Buying versus building brands
   • Valuing brands
   • The branding dilemma
   • Summary
   • Questions
   • Notes
7. Innovation and New Product Development
   • Meaning of innovation
   • Why innovate?
   • Strategic opportunities for fast innovators
   • Barriers to innovation
   • Organising for innovation
   • New product development process
   • Customer adoption process
   • Summary
   • Questions
   • Notes
8. Pricing Policy: Devlivering Value
   • Assessing price competitivness
   • Establishing initial prices
   • Initiating price changes
   • Controlling reseller mark-ups
   • Summary
   • Questions
   • Notes
9. Communications Strategy
   • Introduction
   • Communications and buyer behaviour
   • Advertising planning
   • Direct response marketing
   • Interactive marketing
   • Sales promotion
   • Public relations
   • Determining the communications mix
   • Summary
   • Questions
   • Notes
10. Managing Personal Selling
    • Salesforce objectives
    • Salesforce strategy
    • Structure and size
    • Allocation of resources
    • Sales management
    • The selling process
    • Negotiations
    • Managing account relationships
    • Summary
    • Questions
    • Notes
11. Managing Marketing Channels
    • The role of channels
    • Designing distribution channels
    • Managing distribution channels
    • Channel evolution
    • Organising distribution
    • Summary
    • Questions
    • Notes
12. Marketing in Service Business
    • Nature of services
    • Service characteristics
    • Service tasks
    • Services marketing strategy
    • Summary
    • Questions
    • Notes
13. Turnaround Management
    • Short- versus long-term improvements
    • Types of industry change
    • Some financial concepts
    • Consolidation phase
    • Transformation programme
    • Summary
    • Questions
    • Notes
14. Marketing in the Future
    • Marketing as recapitulation
    • Changing marketing environment
    • Less significant than predicted?
    • More significant than predicted?
    • Corporate social responsibility in action — TNT
    • Summary
    • Questions
    • Notes

At a first glance, it seems to be yet-another marketing text-book. And in one respect it is, but it is also so much more! The authors tries and very nearly succeeds in merging marketing and strategy to a coherent whole.

It is very well written, even if they sometimes are a bit terse (don't skip too much, you may miss something vital they only mention in one paragraph!)

A joy to read, and very much recommended.