Important Issues in Transforming a Company Into a Market-Driven Organization: Key Challenges to Adopting Market Orientation Within Modern Organizations.

To transform a company into a Market-driven Organization we must understand its current Business Orientation first. Traditionally there are four main concepts that can guide a company’s philosophy or business orientation: Production (a production-driven business’ aim is to manufacture a product the cheapest way possible); Product/Development (a development or product-driven business concentrates on manufacturing a product their R&D department can build that is innovative and/or better than the competition); Sales (sales-driven businesses focus on selling the product they manufacture); and Marketing (a marketing-driven business directs its efforts to search for a product or service that suits customer needs and provides them with it) Kotler and Keller (2001). Today, these four types of business orientations have been surpassed by a new concept: Market Orientation.
“The conceptual and application differences between the expressions market-oriented and marketing-oriented organizations has been debated by many authors. While market orientation implies organization-wide adoption of the marketing concept, marketing orientation focuses on the specific activities of the marketing unit.” (Mbah, Ogbuehi and Blankson 2007, p. 31). According to Roger Best (2005) Market Orientation is “restructuring an organization around markets rather than products or factories and creating employee culture that is responsive to customers and changing market conditions”. Thus, the market-oriented organization must be able to create and implement a strategy centred on -and propelled by- the market; it must listen to the market first and then apply the rest of the business concepts: product development, production and sales. After analysing what philosophy (or business orientation) spurs our organization, the transformation towards Market Orientation is implementing a strategy consistent with the marketing concept; consequently, it must adapt to market needs and trends in a way that

References: 1. Best, Roger J, 2005, Market Based Management: Strategies for Growing Customer Value and Profitability, Pearson Education, New Jersey. 2. Kotler, Philip & Keller, Kevin L, 2001, A Framework for Marketing Management, Pearson Education, New Jersey. 3. Kohli, A, & Jawroski, B, 1990, Market Orientation: The Construct, Research Propositions and Managerial Implications, Journal of Marketing, Vol. 54 pp.1-18 4. Mbah, C, Ogbuehi, A, & Blankson, C, 2007, The Challenges of Market Orientation Strategies Implementation in an Emerging Economy, Journal of Business Case Studies, Vol. 3, No. 2, pp. 29-40. 5. Ward, S, and Lewandowska, A, 2008, Is the Marketing Concept Always Necessary? The effectiveness of customer, competitor and societal strategies in business environment types, Journal of European Marketing, Vol. 42, No. ½ pp 222-237. 6. Elg, U, 2008, Inter-Firm Market Orientation and the influence of Network Relational Factors, Scandinavian Journal of Marketing, Vol. 24, Issue 1, pp. 55-68.