Holistic Marketing Perspectives Discussion & Development Plan STC

This discussion post reflects on the importance of holistic marketing strategies in today's interconnected business world, emphasizing the limitations of solely focusing on product or service quality. It highlights the four key components of holistic marketing: internal, integrated, relationship, and performance marketing, while also advocating for the inclusion of socially responsible marketing. The author shares personal insights gained from a marketing perspectives course, outlining a personal development plan focused on implementing new-age, pro-customer marketing models like relationship marketing, the Customer-Based Brand Equity (CBBE) model, and holistic marketing within Saudi Telecom Company (STC). The plan includes short-term goals of extensive research and dissertation completion, and long-term goals of implementing these models within the company, with a focus on tracking progress through reflective logs and acknowledging potential challenges.

Hi Adaora,
It was a learning and enriching experience, reading your discussion and assertion about
holistic marketing. I agree to your argument regarding the need for implementation of holistic
marketing strategy by the business organizations in any industry at any part of the globe in the
contemporary period. As Huang and Rundle-Thiele (2015) opine in their elaborate research paper
that with the world becoming more integrated and interconnected in every aspects, including that of
the commercial domains and with the increasing dominance of internet and social media, which
facilitate easy and fast flow of information among people across the globe, just focussing on the
product or service quality of a firm and basing the marketing strategies on the same cannot help the
firms to gain competitive advantage in the increasingly competitive market (Rakic and Rakic 2015).
However, the perceptions regarding the notion of holistic marketing framework as a whole
and the different components of the same can be seen to be varying among different scholars across
the globe. For instance, I can see that you have focussed on the four components of holistic
marketing strategy, namely the internal marketing, integrated marketing, relationship marketing and
performance marketing. This structure is also suggested by different scholars like Vernuccio and
Ceccotti (2015). However, there is also another crucial component of holistic marketing, that of the
socially responsible marketing. As highlighted by Ivanova and Bikeeva (2016), in the contemporary
period of increasing social awareness, the companies also need to incorporate ethics and social
responsibility in every aspects of their operations, especially in the marketing activities to be
desirable in the eyes of a more socially aware population of customers.
Regards
Khaled
References
Huang, Y.T. and Rundle-Thiele, S., 2015. A holistic management tool for measuring internal
marketing activities. Journal of Services Marketing, 29(6/7), pp.571-584. [Accessed on: September
12, 2018]
Ivanova, I.A. and Bikeeva, M.V., 2016. Corporate Social Responsibility: Specificity, Formation
Mechanism, Estimation of Management Efficiency. European Research Studies, 19, p.167. [Accessed
on: September 12, 2018]
Rakic, B. and Rakic, M., 2015. HOLISTIC MANAGEMENT OF MARKETING SUSTAINABILITY IN THE
PROCESS OF SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT. Environmental Engineering & Management Journal
(EEMJ), 14(4). [Accessed on: September 12, 2018]
Vernuccio, M. and Ceccotti, F., 2015. Strategic and organisational challenges in the integrated
marketing communication paradigm shift: A holistic vision. European Management Journal, 33(6),
pp.438-449. [Accessed on: September 12, 2018]

Week 8: Personal Development Plan
Khaled Hassan
(Word Count: 617)
The last few weeks have been extremely crucial in my professional life. Attending the course
of marketing perspectives has helped me in learning the changing face of global marketing in the
new age integrated and inclusive as well as highly interconnected international framework, where
the customers are more connected, aware and knowledgeable and where the businesses face new
competitions and complexities as well as challenges every day. I also got the opportunity to interact
with my colleagues, from different fields, each sharing their opinions regarding different aspects of
marketing and strategies taken by different companies as well as their outcomes.
These aspects have helped me, not only in changing my insights about the marketing
strategies but also about my personal agenda and plan of developing my skills as well as the
marketing actions of my company, so as to grow in my professional life and to take my company on
the path of sustainable benefits. Working in the Saudi Telecom Company and handling the aspects of
customer management and different aspects of client related issues, I have already felt the need for
more flexibilities as well as a pro-customer model of marketing in my company. Now that my course
on Marketing Perspectives are almost over I have developed my potential development plan in the
following way:
Goals I want to achieve- Specifically I aim to implement the new age pro-customer marketing
models like that of relationship marketing, the Customer-Based Brand Equity model as well as the
concepts of Holistic Marketing in the domain of operations in the company where I currently work
and, in the company, where I can work in future. I also want to focus on these aspects in my final
dissertation. I aim to conduct my research and form my dissertation, specifically on the aspects of
implementation of the concepts of CBBE Model as well as that of holistic marketing model in service
sector companies in Saudi Arabia, thereby analysing the effects of implementation of the same on
the companies, especially in terms of their profitability, prospects, market dominance, customer
satisfaction, competitiveness and also their long-term sustainability.
Timeline to achieve my goals- I have prioritised my goals according to my timeline.
Short-term goals- In the short term, I want to research intuitively and extensively in the aspects of
real life implementations of new age marketing strategies in the companies, especially in the service
sector of that of Saudi Arabia and the implications of the same on the companies as well as on the
behaviour of the customers. I want to complete my dissertation on this issue.
Long-term goals- In the long-term, in my professional life, I want to implement specifically the three
models of relationship marketing, CBBE Model and that of the Holistic Marketing approach in the
company where I currently venture.
Measuring my goals- To achieve my goals and to assess the credibility of the same it is of utmost
importance to keep a track of my progress. I am to maintain reflective log of my progress on both my
work on dissertation and also on my professional activities and how I am implementing the
marketing strategies in real activities.

However, my goals seem too ambitious and too good to achieve. So, I need to be realistic
and also have to take it into consideration that the models will be implemented only to a certain
extent given the operations of my company and there will be challenges in both completing my
dissertation and in implementing the marketing strategies which I learnt in this module. I hope that
my goals are achievable and I can prosper in my professional as well as academic career using the
knowledge which I have gained in this module.