Marketing Orientation: More than Just Customer Focus

As the wine industry globally is pushed towards a marketing orientation, what does this mean for companies and their managers and owners? Distinction should be made between market orientation and marketing orientation. Market orientation places the customer at the top of the organisational chart, yet in the wine industry the customer can be very fickle. As such it does not encapsulate the marketing concept of the matching process – it is not a marketing orientation. The true marketing orientation has evolved from a realisation of the inadequacies of production and sales orientation. Marketing orientation should give equal weight to customer demands and to company requirements. It must choose its markets and manage its own productive capabilities in order to achieve its goals in pursuit of a strategic policy. In the wine industry in particular, it is imperative for management that customer and company needs and wants should be correctly balanced.