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1、Relationship marketing and a new economy: its time for de-programmingThe AuthorsEvert Gummesson, Professor, School of Business, Stockholm University, Stockholm, Sweden Abstract Some economic conditions change gradually and sometimes sudden discontinuities occur whereas other conditions remain stable
2、 for decades, even centuries. In this sense there is always a new economy in the making. The author claims that marketing theory lags behind and that marketing as it is taught and researched today is a relic of the 1960s, patched up with decorations such as services, relationships and e-business. Ac
3、ademe is hiding behind an allegedly scientific front of deductive and reductionistic customer surveys, applying increasingly sophisticated statistical techniques that process data of decreasing quality. Generation of marketing theory requires more of inductive and systemic case study research allowi
4、ng us to confront the complexity, ambiguity and dynamism of the real world with more common sense and less ritual. We need to keep developing marketing theory to avoid turning education into brainwashing. New marketing theory should focus on the value of the total offering; a balance between product
5、ion-centric and customer-centric aspects; and should recognize relationships, networks and interaction as core variables.Article Type: General reviewKeyword(s): Relationship marketing; Economics; Statistics; Theory. Journal: Journal of Services MarketingVolume: 16Number: 7Year: 2002pp: 585-589Copyri
6、ght MCB UP LtdISSN: 0887-6045Change demands de-programmingConditions in the economy and the market have changed, sometimes incrementally, sometimes through discontinuities and quantum leaps. They keep changing, in some areas at a progressively faster pace. A natural corollary to this declaration is:
7、 as marketing practitioners and marketing scholars we also need to change. This seems so evident that there should be no need to print it if marketing was readily adaptable. Although we institute some change, it does not necessarily come naturally, either in academic research, or in marketing practi
8、ce.Need to adapt mindsets In two areas in particular, marketing has offered new approaches and explanations; services marketing has become a field of its own and so has relationship marketing with CRM (customer relationship management). These will form the springboard for a discussion about the futu
9、re and the need to adapt our marketing mindsets. It is my contention that we cannot keep adding new knowledge on top of the old and call services marketing and relationship marketing special cases whereas in fact they dominate the real life arena. They are therefore the general case. Todays “general
10、” textbooks perpetuate the established marketing management epic from the 1960s with the new just added as extras. It is further my contention that marketing education has taken an unfortunate direction and has crossed the fine line between education and brainwashing. The countdown of a painful but
11、revitalizing process of de-programming has to be initiated.What do we need in such a situation? A shrink? No, it is less sophisticated than that. All we need is systematic application of common sense, both in academe and in corporations. We need to use our observational capacity in an inductive mode
12、 and allow it to receive the true story of life, search for patterns, and build theory. Yes, theory, general marketing theory that helps us to put events and activities into a context. This is all within the spirit of grounded theory, widespread in sociology but little understood by marketers. My in
13、terpretation of a recent book on the subject by Glaser (2001) is as follows: Take the elevator from the ground floor of raw substantive data and description to the penthouse of conceptualization and general theory. And do this without paying homage to the legacy of extant theory. In doing this, comp
14、lexity, fuzziness, and ambiguity are received with cheers by the researchers and not shunned as unorderly and threatening as they are by quantitative researchers. Oddly enough, natural sciences which are by mainstream social scientists, including marketing researchers, looked on with envy as being r
15、ich in objectivity and orderliness accept chaos and complexity (see further Stacey, 1996).Good theory Good theory offers a context, a map, and a flashlight that help us find our way home in the dark. Good theory is useful for scholars and practicing managers alike (Gummesson, 2002a). Let us now appr
16、oach some pivotal aspects of our de-programming and the possible content of future marketing theory.A new economy 1: goods + services + information technologyAnachronistic threefold division The overriding division of economies into agriculture, manufacturing industry, and services for occult reason
17、s still upheld by economists and statisticians must be dissolved. Giarini (2001) claims that the “tertiary sector” services is the core of a new economy. I agree that the tertiary sector designation is an anachronism, although one could argue what is the actual outcome of economic activity. In stati
18、stics, services are conventionally presented as a list of various sub-sectors (hotels, transportation, etc.) and even with this classification they account for 60-70 percent of all employment in Western countries. Then the services provided by companies allocated to the “manufacturing sector” are no
19、t counted. For a long time General Electric and General Motors have been huge in financial services. B-to-B (business-to-business) services have expanded, not least through outsourcing. IBMs core business used to be computer hardware; today it is computer services. Furthermore, internal services in
20、organizations are not properly pinpointed. If we add up all this, services may account for as much as 90 percent of all employment. In services, customer-supplier interaction and relationships in the service encounter stands out as the most distinctive feature separating them from goods.Goods are ac
21、tually critical At the same time and this is not appreciated in the service literature we have more goods than ever before in the history of mankind. How can that be? It is because mass manufacturing systems are now so mechanized, robotized and digitalized that they need few workers; they need suppo
22、rtive services. So contrary to what the employment statistics indicate, goods are more critical than ever.Above all activities today hover the opportunities offered by the brain power and intelligence of information technology. Like all technology, it does not provide an automatic solution. It enabl
23、es us to spawn the magic of a benevolent fairy or a sinister witch; who will dominate is up to us.Everything today being a combination of goods, services, and information technology, I like to propose not for the first time that we merge all these and zoom in on the total offering. We should leave t
24、he antiquated division in official statistics where it belongs, in an auction of memorabilia, or perhaps better in the Saturday flea market. In a new economy it has only ceremonial meaning, excluding such core phenomena as information; software; the Internet; and customer input in production, volunt
25、ary work, and do-it-yourself.A new economy 2: value + networksTwo sub-economies There are many views of what a new economy contains. Frequently used labels are the service economy, the knowledge society, and the information era, stressing that we have entered the post-industrial or even the postmode
26、rn age and left an old economy. The problem with these labels is that they are product-centric, not customer-centric; services, knowledge and information are means of production. My suggestion is that we offer two sub-economies within a new economy:1. (1) the value economy, stressing the desired out
27、put; and 2. (2) the network economy, stressing the character of the input. At first sight one might take the value economy as being customer-centric and the network economy as being supplier-centric. But in a new economy and as research is teaching us, suppliers both produce and consume value and ex
28、ist in networks, and customers do the same. Therefore they are both part of the value economy and the network economy.The value economy Different concepts of value Value is a ubiquitous and integral part of life, and as such hard to seize and define although we all experience it daily. There are ove
29、rlapping labels and concepts; among the more frequently used are satisfaction, perceived quality, and utility. Many have written about it both in philosophy, economics, and marketing (see Oliver, 1996; Ravald and Grnroos, 1996). For want of a more generic understanding of value and satisfaction, mar
30、keting usually settles for a proxy, namely perceptual data from consumer surveys.Value creation is traditionally associated with the supplier role, and consumption with the customer role. We must relax the distinction between the producer and the consumer and eventually grow up and take the conseque
31、nces of the knowledge we have accumulated over decades. The consumer is not a passive recipient and a value destroyer but an active co-producer, user and value creator. Value is not present until an offering is used for something and experienced as satisfying a need for somebody.The network economy
32、In focusing the input the structure and organization of the resources necessary to produce value research in services and relationship marketing point to the network as the basis. From a sociological angle, Castells (1996) has established at length the network properties of a new economy, reinforced
33、 by the networks of the Internet and mobile telecommunications. From a marketing angle, relationship marketing can be defined as “marketing based on interaction within networks of relationships” (Gummesson, 2002b). This is a more inclusive, generic and conceptual definition than the common “developi
34、ng, maintaining and enhancing long term customer relationships”, which is merely descriptive. CRM is a young offspring which I define as “applying the values and strategies of relationship marketing in practice, with particular emphasis of the customer-supplier relationship, largely but not solely d
35、ependent on information technology.” A network approach emerged in B-to-B marketing and in Jacksons research the terms transaction marketing and relationship marketing were defined as two complementary ways of doing business (Jackson, 1985).Relationship marketing Research in both consumer goods mark
36、eting, services marketing and B-to-B marketing currently converge and come together under the label of relationship marketing. Within the spirit of grounded theory, relationship marketing could be appointed the core variable, with relationships, networks and interaction as sub-core variables, thus o
37、ffering the beginnings of a general marketing theory. The relationship marketing label is perhaps new, the phenomenon is not. It had just not been properly observed and conceptualized; marketing professors seem to be the last to notice the reality around them.Directions in a new economy Fresh founda
38、tion New knowledge is sometimes accumulated on old knowledge. At some point, however, we have to start with a fresh foundation; we have to shift the paradigm. To learn, we must unlearn. Even if part of the old merges with the new, it has lost its lead role and will have to step down to a humbler pos
39、ition. I have used the more theatrical language of brainwashing versus de-programming to accentuate the gravity of the situation.Surveying perceived trends not just falling in love with the popular hype but settling for the solid and sustainable is a laborious task. Despite the uncertainty, we need
40、to wrestle with the trends to design future scenarios in our marketing and business plans. The following review of conclusions and recommendations is here to serve as food for thought: Need for theory and context. Marketing management today suffers from theory anorexia and cannot properly feed on an
41、d digest what is happening in a new economy. Both practitioners and academics are vulnerable to con men offering panaceas and explanations supported by the ever-present media hype. There is need for more healthy and vitamin-rich feeding of the marketing mind. We need marketing theory, good theory, e
42、ssential for scholars and practicing managers alike. There is currently no general theory of marketing in existence, just reminiscences of outdated microeconomics and fragmented models or concepts, often called theories but so out of management context that they do not survive beyond the shelter of
43、an academic ivory tower. Healthier marketing theory General marketing theory in the making. Relationship marketing and CRM with a focus on relationships, networks and interaction submit the most promising approach to a more valid and general theory of marketing, replacing a dinosaur marketing manage
44、ment and marketing mix consumer goods paradigm from an old economy. Relationship marketing and CRM help us give context on a comprehensive, conceptual and general level, that is, generate healthier marketing theory. The total offering. We must eventually learn to see the offering previously referred
45、 to as goods and services but where I now find it necessary to include information technology as well and its value-producing potential and not get stuck in its constituents parts. To avoid CRM becoming a myopic eCRM we need the counterbalance of hCRM where “h” stands for human. We need to head for
46、an optimal trade-off between eCRM and hCRM. We need to properly absorb the values of relationship marketing or CRM will forever be no more than an expensive computer system. Value and networks. A new economy has been described from two perspectives, as value output and network input. We need to thin
47、k in those terms, but thinking is not enough; we also need to commit ourselves and take action. It includes viewing the roles of the supplier and the customer in a dimmer light. We must accept that a supplier can add value but the customer also adds value. Viable research strategy Inductive research
48、. It means that we also use our senses and our common sense, intuition, tacit knowledge, and experience in conjunction with systematic, scholarly research and everyday observations from practice. Grounded theory has already been mentioned as a viable research strategy. Personally I embrace its merge
49、r with action research, introspection, narrative research, and case study research packaged in what I recently named interactive research (Gummesson, 2000, 2001). Complex and ambigous Complexity and ambiguity. The world is bewildering and so is marketing. It is complex and ambiguous. Research in marketing must put a halt to the excessive, even obscene indulgence in quantification and surveys. We need less