Approaches to the Study of Marketing

   Marketing is increasingly being studied as a discipline or body of knowledge in both formal and informal academic and nonacademic settings  all over the world today. One thing that is immediately clear to any beginning student of marketing is that it is very bored in scope. This makes it possible to view Or approach it from any angle or perspectives. Different marketing scholars have presented different set of approaches for studying marketing. In this book, we shall consider the following set of approaches:
1.  Commodity approach.
2.  Functional approach.
3.  Institutional approach.
4.  Systems approach.
5.  Social approach.
6. Managerial approach.

     The frist three approaches are classified as early or classical approaches, while the last three are referred to as modern approaches.

        THE EARLY CLASSICAL APPROACHES.

The Commodity Approach.

      This approach is otherwise known as the product approach. In this approach, the activities that have to be performed with respect to the movement of specific products from the point of production or origin to the institutional buyers and or ultimate customer's identified, analysed and studied. After completing a large number of studies in this way, one would be in a good position to make general generalization and draw a good picture of what the future of marketing is all about.

The Function Approach.

       In this approach, the activities that are normally performed in the marketing of goods and services are identified and analysed in terms of how they are actually carried out, the financial and other costs involved, and the problems encountered. These functions include buying and selling storage, transportation, standardization and grading financing, risk-taking, and information. A careful study of these functions would provide a good understanding of what marketing entails.

The Institutional Approach

      Here, the different organised group that perform the task of identifying, locating, contacting and motivating consumers and the cause of onward movement of goods and services for manufacturers to them studied. These institution studied in terms of their relationships and contributions towards the identification of consumers and Their consiquent  satisfaction. The role of intermediaries such as wholesalers and retailers, are easy to identify and study. But the role of some others, such as agents and facilitators who do not take title to the goods. May sometimes not be so visible and easy to study. These facilitating institutions include financial houses, transport companies, clearing and forwarding agencies, insurance firm, research organisations, and advertising agencies, among others. The agents include manufacturers agents brokers jobbers and others. this early or classical approaches tend to see marketing form a narrow point of view. They say marketing as mainly concerned with the distribution of goods and services for profit making purposes. But modern marketing involves activities carried out before production during production and after the consumption of goods and services, whether for profit or nonprofit purposes. Even though this early approaches are narrow in the scope they define for marketing, they are still considered relevant in the study all understanding of marketing today they are different however old views serves as an increase in our knowledge of marketing.

        THE MORDEN APPROACHES

The System Approach

       The  system approach sees marketing as a set of interrelated or independent process which are organised to achieve a common goal the identification and satisfaction of customers need . it sees the organisation as an input and output device. The organisation takes its input from the environment processes it, and turns out products and managerial  practice as output. An organization's input determines its output and its output determines its input rather than looking at the component parts of the firm and its environment individually the system approach takes a holistic total look at how decisions are situations in the different parts of the firm and its environment effect one another in the identification and satisfaction of consumers needs and the survival of growth of the firm. The firm and its consumers, suppliers, personals, shareholders, and other members of its environment have a shared destiny . in the system approach the relationship among the component parts of the firm and its environment and how they function together to achieve common goals are studied.

The Social Approach.

       This approach views marketing in terms of the impact it makes one the society.  Marketing affects people's lives in the same way that education, religion, and government do. Marketing, therefore, has some social responsibilities to perform in the environment in which it operates. Firms should not be assessed only in terms of profitable arising form their effective and efficient marketing programs. Their impact on the society should also be considered. The study of marketing vice versa the social approach would therefore entail identifying, analysing and studying the impact of the organisations marketing decisions on the society on  the social responsibilities they discharge.

The Managerial Approach.

     Management entails Woking with and through people in other to achieve organisational goals. The managerial approach to the study of marketing sees marketing as one of the important task which management has to perform. It therefore  focuses on the activities which managers have to perform in the identification of customers needs planning, developing, organising, implementing, and controlling the products and marketing programs to be used in satisfying them. It is basically and organizationally oriented approach and borrows ideas from some of the other approaches. It is currently the most popular of all approaches used for studying marketing.

    The Morden approaches to the study of marketing see the identification of and satisfaction of customers needs as the main objective of marketing and firms. They recognise the contribution .of other approaches to the study of marketing and borrow ideas from them when the  need arises. they are suitable for use in studying marketing In profit making and non profit making as well as service industries.