Relating Importance of Marketing to
National Development
By A B M S Zahur
Before taking on a major future oriented reorganisation of the
educational system the developing nation has the immediate problem of employing
the currently unemployed and improving the productivity of the currently
employed. The techniques of marketing research and product development can
contribute in many ways to the needed educational revolution.
Peter Drucker underlined the importance of marketing in developing countries
because it is capable of answering the critical need. It is a common knowledge
that in most developing countries the government and its allied public
enterprises own a major portion of the productive sector of the economy. Often
government makes policies which prove counterproductive to the marketing efforts
of individual firms. It is, therefore, essential that the governments understand
marketing and its implications to further their aim at national development.
The role of marketing is incomplete without giving adequate importance to the
overall field of management. Implementation of good marketing ideas requires
good management. The following conditions should be met before any government
embarks on a marketing approach: (a) Recognising that marketing and management
are professional disciplines; and (b) Recognising that in organising different
governmental operations, deliberate screening of candidates for their competence
in the field of management is essential.
In the subsequent paragraphs an attempt has been made to indicate, in brief,
the usefulness of marketing technology in some basic fundamental problems.
Population Control: Despite adoption of the explicit goal of
formulating population policies and programmes to accelerate the adjustment of
reproductive patterns to changes in survival patterns the high birth rate has
not changed significantly in most of the developing countries. Such failure
could have been avoided had the management of family planning programmes used
virtually all the technology of marketing. Population programmes face extensive
informational problems. The magnitude of the communication problem is somewhat
parallel to the need for intensive distribution of contraceptive devices in
order to reach the different sectors of the population. Market research can be
used to set up targets for different markets and to test the effectiveness of
different administrative and communication programmes. The technology of
marketing pervades the administration of population control programmes in
setting up targets, in devising communication schemes, in developing appropriate
distribution methods, in motivating the community in the adoption of family
planning practice, in devising incentive schemes, in affecting public attitudes
toward the use of contraception, in developing and testing new methods of
contraception, in developing proper market segmentation strategies and measures
of effectiveness for different programmes.
Agricultural Development and Farm Productivity:
Low farm productivity
of many developing countries is often due to factors such as inefficient methods
of irrigation, lack of mechanisation in farming, inadequate supplies of
fertiliser and natural disasters. But one fundamental problem which is not
recognised is lack of marketing system. Development specialists such as Owens
and Shaw rightly pointed out that agricultural development is more a human
problem than a technical problem. If all farmers can be provided with production
inputs, the financial system, the market and the agricultural knowledge they can
improve the agriculture. Most of the farmers lack access to market system and
thus lack both resources and incentives to modernise their production.
Development of rural market system is of fundamental urgency in bringing
about the necessary agricultural revolution. Proper incentives should exist for
a subsistence farmer to produce more. The most basic incentives is his access to
the national market.
Marketing technology can play a major role in enabling this phase of
institutional development.
Institutional access to the national marketing system could be accomplished
as an independent task or as part of a major social developmental action. The
marketing system could be a part of community centre which offers a variety of
services social, economic and educational to its residents. In the past a
variety of community development schemes were introduced in developing
countries. But a community centre differs from a community development programme
in two respects, fiscal responsibility and management by the community. The
concept of community centre is not new. Its design and development needs a
variety of interdisciplinary skills, of which marketing is one of critical
contributors. Marketing technology can help define the economic, financial
service and management components of the community centre.
Education and Manpower Training: Marketing concepts and techniques may
have profound impact on meeting the nation's manpower needs. Developing nations
need a wide variety of human skills to bring about economic and social
development. Much of educational thrust in developing nations is restricted
geographically to urban areas. Very little emphasis is placed on non-formal
training programmes to increase the productivity of rural labourers, farmers and
the like. There is considerable truth in saying that "the uneducated are
not always unwise, the illiterate are not always ignorant." Generally
speaking, educational institutions have defined their markets very narrowly.
Many of these institutions could mount a wide variety of extension programmes or
outreach activities in their surrounding communities and train people through
non-academic instruction.
Students often do not see any relationship between their educational
aspirations and job aspirations. The employment practices are partly responsible
for this. Very often employers do not insist on hiring personnel with
appropriate educational skill. This vicious circle has to be broken to influence
public attitude toward job-oriented education. Job productivity can be increased
by developing realistic training requirements for different educational
categories. Before taking on a major future oriented reorganisation of the
educational system the developing nation has the immediate problem of employing
the currently unemployed and improving the productivity of the currently
employed. The techniques of marketing research and product development can
contribute in many ways to the needed educational revolution.
Industrial and Entrepreneurial Growth:
Many developing nations in
their quest for industrial growth have imported sophisticated intensive
technology from the West. This has put an enormous burden on the nation's scarce
foreign exchange. In this process the technological and capital needs of small
industries have been largely neglected. In this respect developing nations may
take lesson from both Japan and the United States where small businesses
constitute a large part of their industry.
Some nations have encouraged the building of factories in the rural sector.
This strategy often proved to be uneconomical as the job skills demanded by
these factories are quite alien to the technical skills the rural community can
offer or can be trained for. Industrial development has to be tied to the local
community. In developing countries where high technology investments are
prominent, the operation of these enterprises has suffered from managerial
problems. A nation's demands for management professionals will grow as it
proceeds to industrialise, and the supply of talent should keep up with the
projected growth patterns. New entrepreneurs can be produced and existing
entrepreneurs can be stimulated to greater efforts in their business through
training. Marketing professionals may take an active role in entrepreneurial
development programmes. It is relatively easy to provide technological
assistance to an entrepreneur than marketing assistance. Marketing skills are
sorely needed for successful entrepreneurship. Organisations dealing with
entrepreneurial training should have marketing professionals on their staff to
train the potential entrepreneur.
Export Promotion: In such a governmental activity marketing plays an
invaluable role. Trained marketing professionals should be placed abroad to seek
export opportunities as well as to conduct necessary research on the nature of
the competition that the country is likely to face abroad. On the domestic
front, information on market opportunities must be widely disseminated for all
potential entrepreneurs in the product field. Opportunities should also exist
for the development of new export ideas by individual manufacturers. In order to
perform this function effectively, the government should centralise all export
related activities in an "Institute for Export Promotion" with
considerable operating authority.
Tourism: Marketing of tourism is a difficult task because if requires (a) an
extreme degree of job specialisation in its organisation and hiring of skilled
personnel, (b) development of physical facilities, (c) innovative pricing
mechanisms in coordination with the elements of the private sector, (d) a sense
of understanding of the problems tourists face in alien countries, and (c)
building an integrated organisational structure to coordinate all aspects of
tourist activities.
In drawing out tourism promotion programme realism, accuracy of information,
cultural habits of people, life styles of the local population, and risks of
unguided travel should be emphasised. To facilitate and encourage travel a wide
variety of tour package should be made available. To sustain the growth of
tourism the characteristics of a potential tourist to the country should be
researched.
Concluding Remarks: It is true that marketing in a developmental sense
produces profit, but the profit is in the kind of human resource development and
ultimately national development. To Raffaele "economic development is a
social process in which interaction between rising human capacities and their
employment and the environment and institutions favourable to them takes
place." For effective contribution to economic development marketing must
deal with issues concerning socio-economic aspects of the nation's environment.
The author is a retired Joint Secretary.
courtesy: The Daily Star
