Marketing and Quality Management - The Keys of Competitive Advantage

Abstract

The objective of this paper is to underline the interconnection between marketing and quality management and interdependence of two diverse disciplines: marketing and quality management, as the keys of competitive advantage. American and world marketing specialists - begins with Peter Drucker’s citation: Marketing is so basic that it cannot be considered a separate function. It is the whole business seen from the point of view of its final result, that is, from the customer’s point of view. … Business success is not determined by the producer, but by the customer (Kotler, 1994). Drucker emphasizes the fact that the aim of any business is customer satisfaction and the main instrument of achieving this is marketing.

Implementing Total Quality Management (TQM) into a company’s business practices results in increased customer satisfaction and retention, improvements in company’s internal satisfaction, and increases in revenues. Quality, which is measured through customer satisfaction, is the best market advantage and presence as well as staying power. The customer is the final arbiter of product and service quality and customer loyalty, retention and market share gain are best optimised through a clear focus on the needs of current and potential customers.The future of quality: "Customers have become more informed and demanding, competition more intense and the pace of technological change has quickened. Most people now recognise that quality is the key to achieving sustained competitive advantage." (Oakland, Porter, 2004).

Keywords: marketing, TQM, quality, customer, competitiveness