Going it alone is China and a host of other private businesses who have become the real spurs invigorating the effort to cut the costs of going to space . The private sector is more efficient in the drive to cut costs since profitability is key .
Another important pillar of business evolution is in financing . This not only determines what the business is capable of doing but more importantly determines who gets the spoils of the venture if and when it is successful .
To play in the aviation sector especially in the initial stages was a highly risky and uncertain venture and it required a massive amount of marketing investment to convince the venture capitalists that they were backing a high potential enterprise .
In the initial period players in the aviation sector needed to convince a skeptical audience that there was advantage in constructing and developing planes . Marketing was aimed at boosting investor confidence that the business would be profitable .
What we do need to note is that what causes a business to evolve is the general environment it operates in and in the case of the aviation industry a major boost came from national conflicts and wars that unlocked the huge advantage the fledgling industry could offer .
In the race to develop the ultimate weapon , nations secretly and urgently developed aviation capabilities that were aimed at winning wars and in many cases managed to take the aviation sector to new levels in a short span of time .
Aviation transformed war into a mass death proposition and the infamous atomic bomb horror that effectively ended the Second World War on the eastern front was a triumph of aviation but a sad day for humanity . Man had the capability to wipe out mankind .
As stated above the aviation industry did get an unanticipated boost from governments with belligerent intent but whose support was crucial to enabling the aviation industry become commercially viable and raise the general awareness of aircrafts as more than an eccentric hobby . It fell on the business people in the aviation industry to convert the military advances into commercial application and this called on agile marketing and coordination between government and the aviation sector which is at best a difficult terrain to navigate .
Many a financiers to the early aviators saw their investments crash and destroyed . It was the job of the marketer to keep the dream alive and raise more financing to enable the idea become a product . Selling the future is the forte of marketing .
Asked what marketing is , there is a tendency to equate marketing to advertising , this is because advertising is highly visible in the retail business due to mass media proliferation but marketing tends to be subtle and not so obvious in a manufacturing industry .
Product failure and recovery , government relationship , product guarantees , consumer relationship , after sales service , direct marketing , franchises , brand management and corporate social responsibility are all marketing tools that a manufacturing concern uses depending on how the business is evolving .
In most cases when the face of the company is a charismatic individual then there is a tendency to subsume the marketing functions with the persona of the company head and miss the crucial marketing input given to these larger than life individuals .
As can be appreciated from the case study in discussion , business evolves as a result of either internal changes initiated by the company or as a reaction to external stimuli that necessitate the business to meet a challenge or take advantage of an opportunity .
What is clear is that marketing executes the business strategy and marketing is in turn affected by the changes that occur in the business due to a successful completion of a strategy of otherwise . Marketing is both a catalyst of business evolution and a reactor to business evolution .
What was not clear is who was in charge of the marketing function in the aviation industry , in some cases it was under a project team , in some cases it was under the business development director and at times under the government relations or public affairs director .
But in most cases in seemed to fall squarely in the lap of the CEO who tended to delegate the functions to whomever he felt had the aptitude and ability to carry out the assignment . The sales team seemed to report directly to the CEO in his capacity as the Chief Commercial Officer .
The reason for this vague positioning of the marketing function was as a result of the fact that the innovator in most cases an engineer did not always have a practical application for the innovation unless he happened to be an engineer with business acumen .
When an idea became a business viability it was then necessary to find a person to put the business idea into a business proposal but this tended to land on a person that understood the technology or was in a position to cost the project .
This is the reason why many brilliant innovations do not end up being commercialized because there was no one to market the innovation so that it transforms into a business proposition . As stated earlier a great idea without marketing is virtually dead .
The business model adopted by the marketer or business promoter would ideally include the target customers , the market , organization strengths and potential challenges , the essential elements of the product and crucially how it will be sold .
It is the work of marketing to define the customer segments , create a value proposition , determine the channels , foster customer relationship , identify the revenue streams and the key resources and activities needed , source partnerships and establish the cost structures .
This is the reason why we aver that business is marketing and marketing is business , Evolution in one area has an impact of the other which in turn triggers further changes which is what we normally call business growth .
To recap , businesses are a result of individuals working together in an organized way , the businesses must satisfy a societal need or want and to be classified as a business they must seek to perpetuate themselves by making a profit and growing .
The cover piece was assembled by the Marketing Africa editorial crew . For feedback or any more discourse please drop us a line at : Info @ marketingafrica . co . ke .