The Nature and Scope of Marketing Logistics

In recent years great emphasis has been placed on looking at various aspects of management, and indeed the total management process, from a systems perspective. In its simplest terms this implies an approach to organisation and decision-making in a company which emphasises the relationships between the various functions and departments within the company, rather than the functions and departments per se as separate and discrete activities. For example, there are obvious advantages in standardising a product range from a manufacturing point of view, since this enables economies to be derived on the shop floor: long production runs are feasible, the number of different types of machines and operator skills is likely to be lower, and re-tooling becomes less of a problem. However, such a decision has equally apparent implications from the viewpoint of the sales or marketing manager, who may see a number of serious disadvantages resulting from a restriction of product variety: customers tend to be dissimilar in their product requirements because their needs or their problems are different, and therefore sales are likely to be enhanced if a more bespoke product range is offered. Clearly, in this situation (which is present in all manufacturing companies in one form or another) the ‘best’ decision must take into account the effects on both production and marketing efficiency. Rather than become involved in a discussion of holistic theories of the firm, we may assume that the ‘best’ decision is one which contributes most effectively (most economically) to corporate profit objectives.