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DEVELOPING MARKETING STRATEGIES AND PLANS | CHAPTER 2 53

these developers retain intellectual property rights, Vodafone gains early
exposure to the latest trends and ensures that innovations are compat-
ible with its network. Some of the new apps include real-time train
arrivals and departures, movie show times, and an Amazon.com widget
with personalized details. With 289 million customers in 27 countries,
the $35 billion company hasn’t had trouble finding help from interested
corporate partners either. Dell has collaborated with Vodafone to design
laptops and low-priced netbooks with built-in wireless broadband
access over Vodafone’s networks.

Program Formulation

and Implementation
Even a great marketing strategy can be sabotaged by poor implemen-
Vodafone has actively partnered
tation. If the unit has decided to attain technological leadership, it must strengthen its R&D
with a number of other firms to help
department, gather technological intelligence, develop leading-edge products, train its technical
drive its innovation.
sales force, and communicate its technological leadership.
Once they have formulated marketing programs, marketers must estimate their costs. Is partici-
pating in a particular trade show worth it? Will a specific sales contest pay for itself? Will hiring
another salesperson contribute to the bottom line? Activity-based cost accounting (ABC)—described
in greater detail in Chapter 5—can help determine whether each marketing program is likely to pro-
duce sufficient results to justify its cost. 39
Today’s businesses recognize that unless they nurture other stakeholders—customers, employ-
ees, suppliers, distributors—they may never earn sufficient profits for the stockholders. A company
might aim to delight its customers, perform well for its employees, and deliver a threshold level of
satisfaction to its suppliers. In setting these levels, it must not violate any stakeholder group’s sense
of fairness about the treatment it is receiving relative to the others. 40
A dynamic relationship connects the stakeholder groups. A smart company creates a high level
of employee satisfaction, which leads to higher effort, which leads to higher-quality products and
services, which creates higher customer satisfaction, which leads to more repeat business, which
leads to higher growth and profits, which leads to high stockholder satisfaction, which leads to
more investment, and so on. This virtuous circle spells profits and growth.
According to McKinsey & Company, strategy is only one of seven elements—all of which start
with the letter s—in successful business practice. 41 The first three—strategy, structure, and
systems—are considered the “hardware” of success. The next four—style, skills, staff, and shared
values—are the “software.”
The first “soft” element, style, means company employees share a common way of thinking
and behaving. The second, skills, means employees have the skills needed to carry out the
company’s strategy. Staffing means the company has hired able people, trained them well,
and assigned them to the right jobs. The fourth element, shared values, means employees share the
same guiding values. When these elements are present, companies are usually more successful at
strategy implementation. 42

Feedback and Control

A company’s strategic fit with the environment will inevitably erode, because the market environment
changes faster than the company’s seven Ss. Thus, a company might remain efficient yet lose effective-
ness.Peter Drucker pointed out that it is more important to “do the right thing”—to be effective—than
“to do things right”—to be efficient. The most successful companies, however, excel at both.
Once an organization fails to respond to a changed environment, it becomes increasingly hard
to recapture its lost position. Consider KB Toys. Founded in 1922 as a candy wholesaler, the com-
pany successfully reinvented itself many times, first by shifting its focus to discounted toys and then
by anticipating the growth of shopping malls. The firm became the second-largest toy retailer in
the world but ultimately crumbled due to competition from big-box retailers and its failed acquisi-
tion of eToys. The company declared bankruptcy in 1994 but reemerged in the late 1990s—only to
again file bankruptcy and liquidate its assets in late 2008.