So one of the chapters we read had to do with the idea that the quality of the product is not what the company think it is, but rather what the customer values the quality to be. I felt this was similar to Drucker’s argument that that customer is the driver of the value of a product, but contradicted a bit his teachings on how a business must create a customer. Regradless I found the lesson that quality is determined by the consumer and not the supplier a very true point. If a consumer only wants a product to last a short time then they are not going to care as much if it can hold up against hurricane, and thus pay the extra pricing to have what the supplier thinks is a higher quality product. Drucker’s example was bit more simplified than what I am saying. He talked about how there were these valves that the government wanted. Several companies were bidding the for contract to by the main supplier. The different companies used various materials that they though would add quality to the valves, and the valves themselves got very expensive and complicated. One company invested in lower quality materials. Who do you think won the contract? It was the company who made a lower investment in lower quality materials. This is because this was the only company that understood that the government only wanted the valves to pass inspection. This company made sure that all the valves that were sent to the government would pass their inspection, even if it meant throwing out failing valves. The other companies would just send their product over and their valves would fail. As a result the the company that had the simplest valve won the contract because it catered itself to what its consumer consider quality. Drucker also discussed that the quality can be not achieved by looking at the wrong task in the product or service. He used inner city schools as an example. He talked about how schools who succeeded had a different performance task of “enabling those who want to learn to learn”, where as those who were failing though of their task as helping the underprivileged. The task is still to teach, but how to achieve that task is different and thus there is a difference in quality and ability to complete a task.
The next chapter was about integrity. Now this is a topic that is drilled into every business student from day one, but yet it seems that there is still problems. “Drucker’s view on marketing integrity are:
- You can make mistakes that will forgiven by people
inside the company and customers and the government outside your
organization-but a lack of integrity will not be forgiven.
- Maintaining your integrity may cost you, but it is
worth it.
- Be true to yourself and to your values and beliefs.” (p. 225)
This chapter was brief, and it talked about different ethical
standards that are not always that great in application. He believe Confucian
ethics was the best of them all as they deal with relationships and
interdependence. Besides the three on views the importance is to do no harm to
others, and make sure to always be able to like what you see in the mirror.
That is basically the gist of it, and decent advice for everything in life.
The next chapter was titled “The Dangers of Marketing Professionalism”. Now what my understanding of this chapter is that people can be so focused on that one task of being professional, that they lose sight of the bigger goal. They do not realize that what they are doing is actually a part of the bigger goal. The person that loses sight of the overall goal can end up hurting the business because they are not putting the goals of the organization first. However, I do think that there needs to be a balance with workplace goals and professionalism. I say this because there was an article this week on yahoo that talked about how there is has been an increasing goal of organizations to increase collaboration amongst co-workers by restructuring offices so that there is more collaboration. However, there has been issues that this has decreased professionalism in the workplace and is causing efficiency problems. Here is the article: http://finance.yahoo.com/news/biggest-office-interruptions-224100453.html It just leads me to believe that all though there must be a defined balance between professionalism and company goals as people may become overly committed to them.
The next chapter talked about not buying a customer. The overall concept of this is that companies should be cautious about their coupons and promotional discounts. If a company offers too many discounts they can end up cheapening their product to a point where customers will only buy when discounts are being given. The company tries to buy the customer, but ends up shooting itself in the foot. This is something I can see myself doing as a consumer with the store The Limited. This store has really great work clothes that are not necessarily over priced. However, I only purchase from them when I can get 50%, buy one get on free, or their clearance is an additional percentage off. If I can’t get any of these deals I don’t buy anything from the store unless absolutely necessary. This includes the clearance items. It the clearance items are not one sale I don’t buy. This absolutely insane but with all the discounts The Limited has offered I know there will be another deal just around the corner. This was pretty much what Drucker was talking about, that by offering all the discounts, and continually offering discounts, can cause a company to accidently cheapen their product and be dependent on these discounts to move product.
The
last chapter of the book is about how Drucker has passed and if there is a
future for his teachings. I think there are as they routed in ancient
practices, and even now many students find them beneficial. Will some of his
teachings become outdated, of course. However, the meat bones of the teachings
will be what remains relevant and good.
As
this course ends, I want to thank you for reading this blog for the last 11
weeks. I hope you were able to learn something about marketing.
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