Corporate Marketing Responsibility – A Strategic Tool for the Sustainable Future
Competition is the way of life in today’s corporate world, and companies spend billions anticipating, tackling, and winning over competitors either from the same industry or a different one.
It is necessary to understand that competition becomes a core for each company’s strategy, which clouds the future focus and expectations. Such screening would affect the strategic and sustainable growth of any company. So, how should a company think beyond competition and focus on future growth instead? It is important to know that running a company is not participating in a race and focusing only on winning. It should be understood that running a company is like participating in a marathon that requires endurance to ensure longevity and sustainability. Therefore, idealizing the competition as part of the strategy would distract the vision of a company for its future. So, companies need to work on a marketing strategy, excluding the competition and focusing only on assimilating, creating, and delivering value to target consumers. Each company should think of creating products/services that are distinct from other companies in the same industry, thus, avoiding direct competition but still targeting consumers. Such activity would also help the target consumers understand the distinction of the products/services offered and select suitable ones, instead of being forced to pick products/services based on prices/promotions.
Many companies force consumers to choose the products/services based on prices/promotions rather than allowing them to think and make purchase decisions based on benefits/value. Consumers then fail to appreciate the value provided, so they select the products/services based on price benefits and promotions This leads to them becoming ‘price warriors’ rather than ‘brand loyalists.’ Companies need to work on developing and delivering products/services to suit the expectations and requirements of the target consumers, providing solutions and creating value. This activity enables the consumers to select the companies offering products/services based on the solutions they expect or require rather than prices and promotions. Price and promotions are the primary drivers of the competition and each company involves in such competition will be forced to spend billions. Avoiding such activities would save companies billions, leading to their sustainable future.
How can companies avoid getting into the competition with peer companies and what sort of strategies should be developed? It is important to understand that each industry has an association or forum in which all the peer companies usually hold membership. Such an industry association would be an ideal platform to discuss the issues and develop a consensus among peer companies to select and work on specific products/services that focus on providing value to consumers. The companies need to frequently interact among themselves and compare the notes of the products/services involved in producing/generating. Such activity would lead to a healthy environment of cooperation/co-existence, rather than dwelling in the competition mode, which leads to the destruction of each other and costing billions in the process. Ideally, each company should ensure the offering of products/services that create value to consumers, avoiding competition, ensuring cooperation and co-existence, and creating a sustainable future for all the peer companies. Leading universities offering BBA, MBA, and BSIT in UAE involved in such cooperation and co-existence activities are sharing information and intellectual capital which creates a conducive and progressive academic environment in the country.