By: adam howard
Submitted: 2010-09-06 02:39:43 | Word Count: 596
Marketing audit, the missing link?
So as to survive in these days's highly unpredictable and competitive setting, business leaders cannot leave one stone unturned in their rummage around for excellence! The selling audit could simply be the missing link!
A promoting audit is an invaluable instrument to help a company to ascertain its unique competitive position and to identify its superior skills, resources and capabilities. This is a prerequisite for achieving a sustainable competitive advantage for your product, business unit and/or business.
Conducting a promoting audit is one of the most effective and most sensible decisions an entrepreneur and businessman (or -girls!) will make.
[ advertisement ]
What's a marketing audit?
Philip Kotler describes a promoting audit as a -
o comprehensive,
o systematic,
o independent, and
o periodic examination of a company's or business unit's marketing surroundings, objectives, strategies, and activities with a read to identifying drawback areas (and opportunities) and recommending a plan of action to enhance the organization's promoting performance.
The definition clearly confirms the strategic and operational relevance of a selling audit, making it an important analysis instrument - dissecting, analyzing, assessing, proposing, and advising.
Regarding the audit process
The audit method should be completely planned so that auditing time and price are kept to a minimum, since finishing up a selling audit can be quite expensive. It's usually done by highly skilled, experienced, and specialised selling professionals. Kotler's cardinal rule when conducting an audit is: "Don't rely solely on the organization's managers for information and opinions. Employees, customers, retailers, agents, and alternative stakeholders should also be interviewed and be concerned within the process."
Asking the "right" questions is in actual truth the key to conducting a successful selling audit. Questions unlock an individual's or a group's artistic instincts and serve to stimulate the thought processes. If the correct questions are asked in the right manner, refreshingly new promoting insights and ideas come back to the fore.
The marketing audit also provides the auditor with a clearer picture of the organization's promoting operate and business environment. It can facilitate him/her to spot the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats of an organization's internal and external (promoting) environment.
Some final thoughts
Unlike a financial audit, a selling audit has a robust dualistic character. On the one hand it has a scientific and structured side, and on the opposite hand it has a "chaos" side that invites and provokes intuitive, inventive and "out-of-the-box" thinking.
I feel that the marketing audit process should encourage "out-of-the-box" thinking, since competitive advantage rarely comes from sameness. When businesses provide the same product and repair to the identical market by performing the same reasonably activities no business will prosper within the long run. Data obtained from an intensive and elegantly conducted selling audit can enable management to develop a market focused strategy that's directed by its unique capabilities, making certain sustainable competitive advantage for his or her product, business unit and/or business.
Lastly, the selling audit plays an necessary role in developing a (successful) strategic promoting plan. A well conducted marketing audit can provide corporate and promoting decision-makers with quality information that's relevant, sensible and constructive. As a strategic instrument, the marketing audit is indispensable when developing a selling strategy.
Author Resource:-
Adam has been writing articles online for nearly 2 years now. Not only does this author specialize in Selling Audits, the Perfect Strategic Tool
You can also check out his latest website about
Windows Server Hosting Which reviews and lists the best
Shared Windows Hosting
