Marketing audits: The forgotten side of management?

Abstract

One of the most profound changes in the business landscape over the last two decades has been the new emphasis on evaluating and managing performance. The urgency of fi nancial performances has been accompanied by growing awareness that these are not sustainable unless the pillars on which they are based -marketing included -are properly assessed. On the other hand, many organizations and professionals still consider marketing as a highly qualitative and creative discipline where almost everything fi ts and few things are measured . Recent evidence shows that this is not the case. This article seeks to highlight the importance of audits as a means of revising and improving marketing practice, arguing that the concept, while well developed, will need to address some new realities emerging from the changing marketing landscape. This is necessary if marketing audits want to maintain their viability as an important management tool in the future.

The Various Models of Marketing Audit

“…308-312). 12 These propositions provide the fundamental conceptual basis of a significant theoretical and methodological, as well as application importance. Each of the proposition (at the level of the general specification of the problematic issues) can be treated as the model approach of structural characteristics, but concerning only one of the audit structure element, that is its scope.…”

“…In a condensed approach the marketing audit structure was proposed by Köhler, who specified only four audit areas: the process, strategy, organisation and marketing-mix. 12 Tvede i Ohnemus (2001) distincted eleven research issues, within which, aside the already indicated elements, they extracted current marketing research problems, such as value, digital technological environment of the enterprise, or the reaction speed. In the proposition of the consulting company Copernicus described by Kotler there were indicated twenty-one general areas of marketing control.…”

The possibilities of using audit as a tool of marketing control: the case of a Polish and Ukrainian company

“…how can we get there? [26] -conceptual/procedural model Six fundamental components of audit marketing: audit of the marketing environment (split into macro-and micro-environment), marketing strategy, organization of marketing activities, marketing system, efficiency of marketing activities, marketing operationalization [17] -15 marketing audit issues: the mission of the marketing department, its organization, planning process, marketing personnel, control, sales management, sales personnel qualifications, sales training, salespeople remuneration, distribution channels, advertising and sales promotion, pricing policy, price policy, market research, product service [18] -Original structural solution comprising a set of 28 issues addressed by an audit, and lists of corresponding control questions: marketing strategy and planning, product/service range, the service element in marketing, company performance, export marketing, marketing information: system and use, market size and structure, future market, the salesforce and its management, customer care and suport staff's role in marketing, cross-selling and internal marketing, the agency system, non-personal promotion:methods and media, the distributive system, the buying proces, analysing lost business, introducing new products/services, user industries, key customer marketing, competitive intelligence, physical distribution and packaging, industry contacts, princing, images and perceptions, quality in marketing, non-differentiated products and commodites, service businesses, product/service financial information [25] -Marketing audit areas: marketing management, marketing innovation, market research, communication, distribution, sales force, consumer service [18] -Four areas of marketing audit: the process, strategy, organization and marketing-mix as well as general problems determining their essence [28] -Eleven research problems in marketing audit: defining corporate mission statements, value audit, economic environment audit, business ekosystem audit, competitor audit, end-user audit, product positioning audit, pricing strategy audit, distribution strategy audit, promotion strategy audit, speed and timing audit [29] -Twenty-one general areas of marketing audit: objectives and marketing strategy, environment (climate change), segmentation and selection of target market, differentiation and positioning, price policy, product management, advertising management, public relations, sales promotion management, direct marketing, customer relationship management, customer service excellence, integrated marketing communications, distribution management, marketing to commercial intermediaries, development of new products, marketing information system brands benchmarking, sales management, marketing results, marketing organization [30] Source: own elaboration.…”

“…At that time, some other proposals were put forward to set out crucial areas of a broadly understood marketing audit, such as a 15-element proposal by McConnel[18], and 7-element structures by Naylor and Wood[19], and McDonald[18], supplemented with extensive lists of audit questions.5 Those proposals that treated an audit as an analytical tool in the process of planning marketing activity, were an extension of the views already presented in the 1960s.…”

The use of audit as a tool for strategic control of marketing activities of Polish enterprises

“…The main contribution of theoretical considerations is that they define auditing components or checklists for its implementation. Using the question checklist, the audit not only provides information on the organization's marketing condition [28], but also provides practical guidance on the planning, implementation and value of the marketing audit [29,30]. However, the approach based on control questions has imperfections: it can detect problems, but it does not provide solutions; due to the qualitative nature of checklists, there is little empirical confirmation of their suitability for the assessment of marketing performance and the enrichment of knowledge about measurement properties [31].…”