Market-orientation or product-orientation?

Nowadays, many companies and organizations adopt marketing-orientation and product-orientation to develop their businesses. Marketing-orientation is simply stated that the companies are focusing on the needs and wants of their customers. What the customers want, the companies provide. They realize that the customers play a significant role in their businesses. Without the profit gotten from the products paid by the customers, the end is inevitable for any companies. On the other hand, many companies and organizations focus on developing their products rather than paying attention to the customers. Behind this product-orientation comes the thought that good products with satisfactory price will be welcomed by customers needless of marketing strategies. In the past, that was the way businesses operated. And it would be as simple as that if competition didn't arise and the market wasn't so brutally changing every minute. As far as I'm concerned, companies and organizations will be well-equipped if they adopt both marketing and product-orientation. First, they need to do market research to know what the customers are interested in. This is when marketing strategies are needed. And depending on the market testing, the companies develop the products that will bring the highest profit to them. The product-orientation takes place in this production process to ensure that the products to customers come out with the best quality with the lowest cost possible. Then the marketing campaign for the products is required to present them to the public, or simply called, the potential customers. The marketing campaign includes many different advertising plans such as TV, posters, promotion, attractive placement of the products, etc. After successfully selling the products to the customers, companies get back the capital investment they initially put into the production and advertisement of the products and some profit. At the same time, market specialists must get the feedback about the products from the customers and send them back to the companies for further development of their products and expansion of the market areas in the future. The companies therefore operate smoothly and coherently when adopt both marketing-orientated and product-oriented strategies.

One example of customer-orientation and product-orientation I would like to mention here is a fashion brand named Forever21 (F21). From my experience of being a customer of the brand, I think that its market-orientated and product-oriented strategies are quite good. Its marketing campaign is wide-spread, from its own retail stores to its websites. The stores and website are decorated beautifully and conveniently for the use of customers. In its retail stores, the employees are well-mannered, friendly and helpful and the clothes are put in order. The online shopping experience is quite nice, too. F21 offers everything its retail stores have online and the paying methods are easily executed. Consequently, F21 makes the buying experience feel nice and comfortable. At the same time, it creates qualified products and is constantly improving its lines to meet customers’ demands and needs. As in the fashion industry, trends are changing in the blink of an eye. Therefore, F21 keeps track of them and provides its customers with the latest styles. But the price of F21’s products is moderately reasonable and fits the budgets of middle-class customers, the majority of the society. Promotions and sales are given to customers frequently and customers’ services are available almost every day, which form customers’ satisfaction and loyalty to the brand itself.  

Overall, I think that the best way to make successful companies is to integrate both marketing orientation and product orientation because “Market orientation gets the right product: product orientation get the product right” (source: businesscasestudies.co.uk).