Marketing relationships in Brazil: trends in value strategies and capabilities

Abstract

Purpose -The purpose of this paper is to examine the use of value strategies among international and national firms in Brazil by exploring the trends in value strategies for use in future marketing relationships and the capabilities necessary to implement those value strategies. Design/methodology/approach -The study uses a Delphi technique to elicit the opinions and perceptions from a group of B2B marketing experts. An iterative data collection with 30 senior executives of national and foreign, mid-and large size firms in Brazil was used to explore the strategies firms use, the types of key capabilities, and the capabilities that drive performance. Findings -The findings show that both national and international firms in Brazil expect to continue to use commodity strategies as their primary relational form, but move toward the higher value added strategies. Higher value added strategies are expected to account for 42 per cent of the respondent firms' relationships in the coming years. Firms rated "methods to identify and monitor" and "marketing intelligence" as the two most important capabilities for driving performance. An additional finding is the distinction between firms' self-evaluations of capability competence and the capabilities that drive performance. Practical implications -The study provides insight into the links between value strategies practiced and the marketing capabilities required to support those strategies. Originality/value -The study provides practitioner insights into the practices and trends in the use of value-driving and value-creating strategies among firms in a big emerging market, Brazil.

Marketing Capabilities Development in Small and Medium Enterprises: Implications for Performance

“…However, recent research conducted among firms operating in developing countries reinforces the importance of both IM and marketing capabilities for the competitiveness of SMEs; although the IM-marketing capabilities link remains unexplored. According to Puga Ribeiro et al (2009), Brazil is capable of producing quality goods cheaply, but many firms are still unable to sell the goods internationally because they lack efficient marketing capabilities. In this sense, one can consider marketing capabilities to be key factors for the success of Brazilian firms in meeting the challenges of the coming years and generating superior market performance.…”

Developing a measure of climate strategy proactivity displayed to attain competitive advantage

“…Studies suggest that CA can be attained through better market position (Porter, 1980), unique resources (Barney, 1991), reputation (Hall, 1992), access to factor (Barney, 1986), access to market (Lieberman and Montgomery, 1988), knowledge (Prahalad and Hamel, 1990) and capabilities (Teece et al , 1997) to provide better products and services, pre-empting competitors through first mover advantage-being more efficient in terms of cost, image, reputation- improving legitimacy as a good corporate citizen-enhanced sales and profit growth- additional sales in untapped areas with scarce competition-high margin products using cutting-edge technology (Menguc et al , 2010), improved export performance-market share-financial returns (Leonidou et al , 2011), superior profits-rents-market share (Barney, 1991; Leonidou et al , 2011), unique value/positioning enhancing strategy (Bone and Saxon, 2000), superior market value creation (Ribeiro et al , 2009), maintaining pace with changing trends-strategy adjustments-risk handling measures (Li, 2009), brand-culture-technology-innovations-quality-adaptability-value creation-customer satisfaction-market share-productivity (Ambastha and Momaya, 2004), marketing innovations-creativity-improved business performances (Epetimehin, 2011), customer intimacy-associated organizational actions-attracting new customers-retaining existing customers-innovations-operational efficiency-improved supply chain-reduced cost without comprising quality (Li, 2009), positive primary stakeholders’ relations (Hillman and Keim, 2001), efficient resource management-profit-satisfaction of the stakeholders’ expectations (López et al , 2007), investment as per sustainability principles (Sage, 1999), positive reputation (Barney, 1991) and customers service standards (Kaleka, 2011). Other non-financial measures of CA have also been used in studies including but not restricted to creative processes to develop product and services-customer responsiveness gauzed by customer retention/customer attraction-cost effectiveness-market differentiation-organizational performance-social responsibility-core competence- and strategic planning (Agha et al , 2012; Al-alak and Tarabieh, 2011; Barrett et al , 2015; Diab, 2014; Epetimehin, 2011; Heywood and Kenley, 2008; Kasasbeh et al , 2017; Kuettner and Schubert, 2012; Majeed, 2011; Matikiti et al , 2012; Prescott, 2014; Schatz and Bashroush, 2016; Sigalas et al , 2013; Vahid et al , 2013).…”

Trust as a moderator of the relationship between organizational learning and marketing capabilities: Evidence from Spanish SMEs

“…Thus, the study of the antecedents of marketing capabilities has been mainly limited to date to the consideration of market orientation as the essential determining factor in marketing capabilities development (Tsai and Shih, 2004). However, since SMEs seem to find it more difficult to develop a full implementation of the marketing concept in their activities (because their lack of resources hinders the possibility of developing formal and structured market studies), it is relevant to investigate other potential forerunners of the commercial skills (Wong, 2005; Puga et al, 2009; Yang and Coates, 2010). Accordingly, another important contribution of the research in this field is that OL (a more comprehensive construct than market-focused learning) is identified as a key forerunner of marketing capabilities.…”