Procurement and Marketing In International Environment

The importance of “Marketing” as a concept, a practice and an orientation as being fundamental to the competitiveness and the survival of almost every organisation cannot be over emphasis in today’s business environment. Marketing is a broad topic that covers a range of aspects, including advertising, public relations, sales, and promotions and the strategies and approach adopted in implementing such tasks can be a deciding factor in the competitiveness and survival of the organisation. According to the American Marketing Association (AMA), marketing is defined as “Marketing is the activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners, and society at large.”[i] It is important because the world has become globalised and from a national stand point economic isolationism has become impossible. Failure to participate in the global market assured a nation of declining economic capability and its citizen of decrease in their standard of living.[ii]
Marketing has been and will continue to be a function for the survival of any organisation. Most businesses are expanding and getting into new market areas for economic and strategic reasons and it is becoming increasingly difficult, if not possible, for companies to insulate themselves from the effect of international marketing environment, even if their products are designed for purely local environment. The biggest companies in the biggest home market cannot survive on domestic sales alone if they are in global industries such as cars, banking, consumer electronics, entertainment, pharmaceuticals, publishing, travel services, or home appliances.[iii] For example an electronic company in Japan targeting local market can receive an order from a foreign country