XIV. Consider the following chart and speak about the difference between the sales or production orientation, and the consumer or market orientation: Sales and production orientation

Consumer and market orientation

XV. Read the following text and give a short summary of it: Marketing In Action: Polaroid Adopts Marketing Concept

Some companies such as Polaroid have only recently adopted the marketing concept. Edwin H. Land, the Inventor of the Polaroid Instant camera and founder of Polaroid Corp., believed that marketing success was based on the development of Innovative products that consumer would then be persuaded to purchase. Under his leadership and direction, Polaroid used little or no marketing research. This production and sales orientation worked as long as Land could improve his Instant camera and as long as use of traditional cameras was complicated and the delay in developing pictures was long. When easy to use, computer-controlled 35-mm cameras were Inverted and 1-hour photo processing centers began to spring up around the country, however, the market for instant photography faltered.

Land left Polaroid in 1980, after the company lost approximately $ 300 million on Polavision — an instant home movie camera. In­dustry analysts acknowledged that Polavision was a technological success, but there was no market for the product. With the departure of Land, William J. McCune became president and brought the marketing concept to Polaroid.

Under McCune’s direction the company’s approach to product development became more pragmatic. Now Polaroid begins by targeting a market need: for example, the need to convert graphic computer displays to color slides, for which the company developed Palette, which sells for $ 1,499. The product development efforts at Polaroid involve the integrated efforts of the engineering, marketing and manufacturing operations. Under Land’s direction, these three domains were independent and had little or no contact with each other.

XVI. Round-table discussion:

1. Do you feel all companies must be predominantly market-oriented?

2. Is there a danger that if a company is too market-oriented that it will ignore other ingredients of success such as efficient production?

3. Identify organizations in your country that practise the production concept, the product concept, and the selling concept. How could these organizations become more market-oriented?

Giving your opinion make use of the following helpful phrases:

To introduce opinions:

Well, I’d just like to say, that …

My attitude from the beginning was …

My feelings about… Well, …

I’d like to start by saying that …

I am glad to have the opportunity to …

Perhaps I could begin by saying that …

To make a point:

I think that I should be frank and say that …

We should always remember that …

I can’t make this point strong enough …

To check a point:

Am I right in thinking that you are proposing …

Right. If I am not mistaken, your policy is …

Correct me if I am wrong, but what you are proposing is …

To move on:

Perhaps we could move on to the next point (question) under discussion ...

That brings us to the next item on …