Strategie Marketing Practices: Their contribution to the competitive success of medium-sized manufacturing firms in New Zealand

Abstract

This article examines the contribution of selected ‘textbook’ strategic marketing practices to the competitive success of medium sized New Zealand manufacturing firms as well as the extent of their overall adoption within this group of firms. Data was collected by mail survey. A total of 213 usable questionnaires were received from companies employing between 20 and 100 people. Data analysis was conducted using SPSS. The results show that although most of the basic strategic marketing practices typically advocated in the mainstream academic and prescriptive literature clearly differentiate the higher performing firms from their lower performing counterparts, for many medium sized manufacturing firms in New Zealand there still remains much to be done if they are to fully embrace strategic marketing. One limitation is the unknown extent to which the sample is truly representative of the population under scrutiny. Also, differences in the interpretation of certain questions in the questionnaire cannot be ruled out.

Keywords:

• - Strategic marketing
• manufacturing firms
• New Zealand