Evolution of Modern Corporate Marketing Departments Essay

Evolution of Modern Corporate Marketing Departments - Essay Example In other words, we can say that last year at least, these top companies did a good job of marketing. â€Å"Marketing is so basic that it is not just enough to have a strong sales department and entrust marketing to it. Marketing is not only much broader than selling; it is not a specialized activity at all. It encompasses the entire business. It is the whole business seen from the point of view of its final result, that is, from the customer’s point of view. Concern and responsibility for marketing must therefore permeate all areas of the enterprise† (p. 36). Drucker predated Levitt (1960) in defining how the marketing function involves understanding and anticipating future customer needs while satisfying today’s customers who determine what a business is, what they consider â€Å"value† for which they are willing to pay the right price, and what the business should produce. In the over half a century since, marketing has evolved to be a highly, if not the most, important component of running a business successfully. Every profitable and sustainable business, from small enterprises to charities, has a marketing component tasked with finding out what sells (Gummesson, 2002). The American Marketing Association (AMA, 2004) defines marketing as â€Å"an organizational function and a set of processes for creating, communicating, and delivering value to customers and for managing customer relationships in ways that benefit the organization and its stakeholders.† That most of the companies in the Fortune 500 list (though some like GM decreased their revenues and suffered a $10 billion loss) were able to sell products and services profitably showed that the organizational function of marketing delivered on its promise, helped the business fulfill its purpose, and satisfied its stakeholders. Higher record sales and