Paradox of a Marketing Planning Capability, Slotegraaf Essay

Paradox of a Marketing Planning Capability, Slotegraaf and Dickson (2004) argue that there is mixed empirical evidence at best to support the idea of having strong planning capabilities in an organization. They note that while planning service a purpose of preparing the organization for the future, the future is far from predictable. It is impossible to have a plan in place for every contingency, and thus planning is reduced to moderate effectiveness at best by the unpredictable realities of business. Marketing planning in particular, they argue can increase strategic rigidity, limiting the ability of the firm to benefit from postplan innovation. There is a paradox in marketing planning, since the plan seeks to optimize results but may prohibit the types of practices that allow corporations to enhance their wealth.

As a matter of background, there is support for the idea that formal, budgeted marketing planning is declining as many organizations have begun to emphasize different marketing strategies like customer relationship management, which has less certainty in its cash flows (Stone, Woodcock & Wilson, 1996).

The authors actually have a weak proposition - their hypothesis is self-evident in that such a paradox exists. This conclusion is also the starting idea for their paper, which makes it a weak hypothesis to test. With high-end rhetorical skills, any paradox can be imagined. The article gains its strength more from the analysis, then, than from the conclusion. The analysis focuses on the nature of marketing planning capability. The authors provide an overview of the conception models that underlie the argument in favor of marketing planning, and the role of postplanning improvisation in an attempt to understand why the consequences of these two approaches can be conflicting. The basic conclusion here is that there is a degree of mutual exclusivity between planning and improvisation that can take the company below the optimal performance level.

The authors assume as a matter of course that where there is planning, there is a tendency to stick to the plans, which is to the detriment of improvisation. The authors found mixed evidence that lent support to some of their contentions but failed to support others. The authors find that there are times when planning reduces the likelihood of improvisation, but that planning capability is not correlated. Further, there are questionable links between planning capability and profit. Firms that are better at planning are more likely to rely…