How Marketing Orientated Are You?

This exercise is taken from Michael J. Baker’s The Marketing Manual (Butterworth Heinemann, 1988). Please refer to if for further, more detailed information.

Below is a set of 28 statements which describe attitudes which may or may not exist within the organisation in which you work.

We want to know about such attitudes as they exist in your organisation from your own experience. Such attitudes will be reflected by your immediate colleagues at work. By “your organisation”, we mean that part of the company for which you directly work and not the whole company.

You should express your own views and not the views of any group to which you belong. You should express attitudes as they are and not as you feel they ought to be or attitudes which you hope will prevail at some future date.

You are not allowed to say “I don’t know” – even if this is true. We want you to make the best guess you can from your knowledge of the organisation.

Read each of the statements below and tick the box which most closely reflects the way you feel about it.

In my organisation:

1. The sales force is expected to sell what the factory can make.

( ) Strongly Agree ( ) Agree ( ) Disagree ( ) Strongly Disagree

2. There is an emphasis on short term profits at the expense of long term success in the market place.

( ) Strongly Agree ( ) Agree ( ) Disagree ( ) Strongly Disagree

3. We believe customers must get what they want, even if it is rather unprofitable for the company.

( ) Strongly Agree ( ) Agree ( ) Disagree ( ) Strongly Disagree

4. The business is committed to a long term strategic point of view, supported by thorough market planning.

( ) Strongly Agree ( ) Agree ( ) Disagree ( ) Strongly Disagree

5. We focus primarily on the bottom line and productivity, and only then on the customer and the market place.

( ) Strongly Agree ( ) Agree ( ) Disagree ( ) Strongly Disagree

6. Subjective sales force forecasts largely determine the production process.

( ) Strongly Agree ( ) Agree ( ) Disagree ( ) Strongly Disagree

7. We base the price of our products on cost only, worked out by the accountants who dictate pricing strategy almost regardless of the market place.

( ) Strongly Agree ( ) Agree ( ) Disagree ( ) Strongly Disagree

8. Research and engineering are the heart of our business and our marketing people are not usually involved in determining what products we should make.

( ) Strongly Agree ( ) Agree ( ) Disagree ( ) Strongly Disagree

9. The factory floor is the local centre of the organisation.

( ) Strongly Agree ( ) Agree ( ) Disagree ( ) Strongly Disagree

10. Productivity improvements often result in changes to product specification which make the product difficult to sell to the customer.

( ) Strongly Agree ( ) Agree ( ) Disagree ( ) Strongly Disagree

11. Capital investment decisions which involve new technology and the relocation of manufacturing plant rarely involve the marketing people.

( ) Strongly Agree ( ) Agree ( ) Disagree ( ) Strongly Disagree

12. We believe that selling volume comes first. Profits then generally follow.

( ) Strongly Agree ( ) Agree ( ) Disagree ( ) Strongly Disagree

13. We believe in the principle of managing the market place by expecting – and managing – change.

( ) Strongly Agree ( ) Agree ( ) Disagree ( ) Strongly Disagree

14. We tend to fit our forecasts to the profits that we know are expected of us; then we plan how to achieve the forecasts.

( ) Strongly Agree ( ) Agree ( ) Disagree ( ) Strongly Disagree

15. We don’t pay a lot of attention to market research.

( ) Strongly Agree ( ) Agree ( ) Disagree ( ) Strongly Disagree

16. Product planning takes place on the factory floor, not in the marketing department.

( ) Strongly Agree ( ) Agree ( ) Disagree ( ) Strongly Disagree

17. Product costs, consumer prices and the whole panoply of customer service expenditure tends to be based on profit needs, not market needs.

( ) Strongly Agree ( ) Agree ( ) Disagree ( ) Strongly Disagree

18. We tend to see ourselves as manufacturers rather than as marketers

( ) Strongly Agree ( ) Agree ( ) Disagree ( ) Strongly Disagree

19. Our R & D people don’t spend much time talking to the sales and marketing people.

( ) Strongly Agree ( ) Agree ( ) Disagree ( ) Strongly Disagree

20. If customers aren’t happy with our product, we tend to go looking for new customers rather than new products.

( ) Strongly Agree ( ) Agree ( ) Disagree ( ) Strongly Disagree

21. We tend to be more concerned with return on investment in the short term, than with customer satisfaction in the long term.

( ) Strongly Agree ( ) Agree ( ) Disagree ( ) Strongly Disagree

22. Our focus is on the market place: identifying customer needs and meeting those needs profitably.

( ) Strongly Agree ( ) Agree ( ) Disagree ( ) Strongly Disagree

23. Our sales people are given great freedom in pricing, servicing and credit terms.

( ) Strongly Agree ( ) Agree ( ) Disagree ( ) Strongly Disagree

24. The product is the concern of our technical people with little input from the marketing people.

( ) Strongly Agree ( ) Agree ( ) Disagree ( ) Strongly Disagree

25. The emphasis is on a balance between market share, market status and long term profitability.

( ) Strongly Agree ( ) Agree ( ) Disagree ( ) Strongly Disagree

26. Marketing guidance for the engineers and the production people is often weak or non-existent.

( ) Strongly Agree ( ) Agree ( ) Disagree ( ) Strongly Disagree

27. We work with a lot of information feedback systems from the market place to measure and guide our activities.

( ) Strongly Agree ( ) Agree ( ) Disagree ( ) Strongly Disagree

28. We tend to over engineer our products way past the point of customer need – and his/her ability to pay.

( ) Strongly Agree ( ) Agree ( ) Disagree ( ) Strongly Disagree