There are a lot of developments that have been made in services marketing. Services have been developed as an area that have specific needs as well as characteristics that require consideration. Services require a marketing approach thus the need to select good communication elements (Hogg and Gabbott, 1998, p.5). There requires good advertising strategy and tactics for service organization.
A company needs to understand precisely what it is selling as opposed to what the customer wants to buy. At times, there is need for a service to be provided to enable the selling of a certain good. When purchasing goods, the buyer is allowed to examine the fully before buying. The buyer also have a right to return the goods if by any chance the goods are found to be faulty or not of the quality that they wanted. Therefore all services that are available in the market are subject of certain specific legal control within each type of service industry. This is not an exemption to the Ford Motor Company.
Since in the market there are variations in service quality, customers generally look for consistent basic quality values that have been applied. In some areas of business, this is attained by buyers opting to buy from service providers that can clearly show that they act by some form of exterior quality values. This calls for services companies to have sales and marketing strategies that will create, build and maintain organizational credibility to the customers (Clarke, 2000). In this report we are going to focus on the strategies that Ford Motor Company has adopted and how the strategies are creating, building, and maintaining this company’s credibility in service marketing.
Organization Description
Ford Motor Company has an open system where it interacts with the environment for it to thrive; that is, ‘it consumes resources and exports resources to the environment’ (Daft, 2007, p. 14). For Ford Motor to survive in its service marketing, it must adapt to the environment. It has to find the needed funds, understand and take action on environmental adjustments, arrange the productivity, and manage and coordinate in-house actions in the countenance of ecological turbulences and uncertainty.
For an organization to accomplish its long term goals, it must have the right structure and ways by which it sis going to adapt to changes in technology. “Corporations need to learn to cross the lines of time, culture, and geography to survive (Daft, 2007, p. 8). Companies need to have right structures and processes which can help them to achieve the benefits of global interdependence as well as reducing the demerits. There are some purposes and characteristics that a company has to accomplish to attract its customers. In Ford Motor Company these are some of the responsibility that it has to meet.
- Ethics and social responsibility. This is one of the areas that are mainly affecting most corporations worldwide. For Ford Motor Company to thrive, its executives have to demonstrate and maintain good moral values to carry and accomplish the vision of the company. It has to keen on fraud from the administration. For the company to market its services effectively to its customers, every staff must be morally responsible. Without ethics the company cannot be able to create, build or maintain its credibility to its customers.
- Speed of responsiveness. The main challenge that is facing organizations including Ford Motors in how to respond swiftly and resolutely to environmental adjustments , managerial predicaments as well as the changing customer expectations. There was not much change in the twentieth century and so managers could project on designing structures and systems that would keep the corporation running effortlessly and professionally. There were not many changes in environment, customers’ demands or competition. However in the world today the rate at which globalization and advancing technology is very high and thus the companies need to come up with new products and services for them to stay competitive. “Today’s customers also want products and services tailored to their exact needs; companies that relied on mass production and distribution techniques must be prepared with new computer-aided systems that can produces one-of-a-kind variations and streamlined distribution systems that deliver products and services directly to the consumer” (Daft, 2007, p. 8).
There are five main characteristics of an organization that helps it to meet its goals and accomplish its mission.
- Technical core. This involves the people who do the basic work of the organization. This does the task of production subsystem purpose as well as producing the product and service production of the association. It is where the principal conversion from inputs to outputs is effected. The technical core in Ford Motor Company is the Production department.
- Technical support. This assist the association adapt to the environment. In Ford Motors Company, the technical support employees are the engineers and researchers who detect the ecological problems, opportunities and technological improvements. It is accountable for generating innovations in the technical core, assisting the association to change and adapt.
- Administrative support. In Ford Motor Company, the administrative support is accountable for the easy function and upkeep of the association. This includes both the physical as well as human aspect. It involves recruiting and hiring, compensation and profit establishment, training and developing employees in addition to cleaning and service repair of machines.
- Management. This is the subsystem that is accountable for directing and organizing other elements of the organization. Top administration offers direction, strategy, objectives, and policies for the whole association.
Strategy Description
The Ford company had been faced by the challenges in production facilities. It came up with a strategy of making a new committee known as the Facilities Committee. Due to the problems that the company was experiencing, it opted to decentralize its organizational structure. This led to introduction of the company’s strategy for restructuring and renewal of the company after the Second World War.
This triggered the need for the company to educate employees about the values of decentralization. The committee was also committed to the realization of the company. It was until 1949 that the ford car hit the road proper thanks to the establishment of a division predominantly concentrating on designing and marketing of the ford automobiles. The executives were by then committed to the major goal of decentralization: realizing the hugest performance by division needs divisional independence, thus providing enough motivations and calling for full accountability. Towards the end of 1949, the Facilities Committee came up with new plans that would meet the company’s future engine production.
One of the plans was to transform some of the parts and accessories building into engine production plants. This plant ensured it met the demand by ensuring that the company would use the machinery and equipments from the earlier plant (Lamoreaux, Raff and Temin, 1999 p. 189).
At Ford Motors, there is the managerial strategy known as fraternalism; since nineteenth century, this company was a male dominated company. In early 1940s, the massive River Rouge complex had more than 70,000 men but no woman employee in the production department. This is because this department required masculinity and skills. At Ford this problems was attempted to be solved by increasing the wages to compensate for poor working conditions. Fraternalism was introduced to replace paternalism as a managerial strategy that converted labour time into effort, limiting the employment for women (Mutari and Figart, 2003. p. 66).
There is a great increase in the demand for hybrid vehicles. Peoples have shown the need for new preferences other than the common Toyota and Honda models that have become so common. The Ford Motor Company promised to come up with a hybrid SUV. There were plans to come up with a model that would handle a muscular V6 and consume little amounts of gasoline apart from producing minute emissions.
Strategy Implications
This company has been facing challenges in achieving its goal. There is a lot of competition from its rivals. When the company was designing the Escape Hybrid SUV, it needed to develop nine new technologies. Ford wanted to develop these new technologies in-hose and not licensing patents from Toyota’s Hybrid system. This was a problem because developing even one technology was a major challenge for Ford’s traditional engineering and design process. This forced Ford to form a hybrid team constituting both scientists and product engineers from different departments.
Increasing the number of women in the production department was greatly hindered by the nature of work in that department. The spread of group fabrication was linked with steady turn down in the percentage of women fabrication employees. This explains why there were fewer women than men in the production department. The general acceptance of male priority in employment has negative implications for women seeking employment.
Before the mass production period, Ford largely depended on skilled male employees who would control how vehicles were assembled. These male employees played a major role in bringing developments in the production process and they had to some extent a control over attaining tools and fixtures for their job. The spread of group fabrication as well as the transformation to an unskilled labour brought out new implications and new possibilities for changing time into effort.
Conclusion
Marketing can have many implications when the strategies laid down are not followed. Changes in the economy as well as political aspects can as well result to major shifts within the service industry. The main goals of good marketing should be the cost effective start-up as well as managing a beneficial business enterprise that has happy customers serviced by experienced and confident personnel. For this to be attained, marketing needs to be a customer- centered procedure carried out with fervor and keenness all through the service provider’s company. The personnel need to be provided with concern for each customer’s understanding throughout the contract and beyond.
References
Clarke, G. (2000). Marketing a service for profit: a practical guide to key service marketing. London, Kogan Page Limited. Web.
Daft, R. L. (2007). Organization theory and design. OH, Graphic World Inc. Web.
Hogg, G. and Gabbott, M. (1998). Service industries marketing: new approach. London, Frank Cass Publishers. Web.
Lamoreaux, N. R., Raff, D. M. G. and Temin, P. (1999). Learning by dong in the markets, firms, and countries. Chicago, The University of Chicago Press. Web.
Mutari, E. and Figart, D. M. (2003). Women and the economy: a reader. New York, M.E. Sharpe, Inc. Web.